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An Indiana man 


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By LeRoy Armstrong 

OF THE CHICAGO HERALD 





CHICAGO 

1890 




Pz.3 


COPYRIGHT 

By Le Roy Armstrong. 

1890. 


CONTENTS 


Chapter. Page. 

1. His First Estate.. 7 

2. The Spelling-School. 13 

3. Beginning the Canvass. 25 

4. First Lessons in Government_30 

5. Hostilities Declared..._ 36 

6. Haberly and Esther_ 42 

7. The Gang Defied.. 49 

8. Ellet’s First Humiliation__ 57 

9. The County Convention_ 67 

10. A Popular Candidate. 79 

11. A Sunday at the Farm.. 89 

12. The Rally. 96 

13. Sautern Defendant..103 

14. Poole Wakes to Manhood . no 

15. Who Edits the Newspaper?...122 

16. Election_ 137 

17. A Patriot’s Gospel.. --143 

18. A Night with the Boys...157 

19. Beyond All Pardon. 165 

20. After That—the Deluge. 171 

21. In Cider-Making Time.184 

22. They Met in an Upper Room.188 

23. Too Base for Insult....198 

24. The Wreck__ —209 

25. Quite Through the Valley_...__216 


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AN INDIANA MAN. 


CHAPTER I. 

HIS FIRST ESTATE. 

The preacher had lifted his hands in benedic¬ 
tion over his people, and in the pauses between 
his solemn sentences they heard the rain driven 
fiercely against the window panes. There was a 
furtive looking about for overshoes, a quiet gath¬ 
ering up of umbrellas; and on the untamed bor¬ 
ders of ceremony near the door, some men and 
women were putting on their gossamers. 

Ellet Grant, up there in the choir’s corner, near 
the pulpit, lifted his head from the moment’s 
devotion, and caught the bright eyes of John 
Haberly fixed upon him. There was something 
more than friendship between these two men, and 
ygl they could by no means be called intimate. 
There was a phase of nature in each one which 
caught its like reflected from the other, and they 
said less when they met, yet seemed to under- 


i 



8 


AN INDIANA MAN. 


stand each other better, and enjoy more each 
transient meeting. 

“ Come to dinner with me,” said Haberly, as 
the two shook hands at his pew door. “It is 
raining too hard for you to ride home.” 

They hurried through the gusty street, turned 
at the corner and met the rain-laden wind, picked 
their difficult way over the crossing, and entered 
Haberly’s gate. It was one of the handsome 
houses in Fairview, and its owner somehow con¬ 
trived, even here in midwinter, and in a mid¬ 
winter rain storm, to keep it presentable. 

“Do you know what I was thinking to-day, as 
I watched you back there in the church, Ellet? ” 
said Haberly, as they sat by his wood fire after 
dinner. 

“ Thinking how beautifully I was listening to 
the sermon, I suppose.” 

Haberly’s red lips parted and his white teeth 
showed in appreciation of what he took for humor. 

“I was thinking of something I have heard 
forty times since the last election. You ought to 
run for sheriff.” 

“ I? ” 

“Yes, you. There are a good many reasons. 
Hall has had two terms, and cannot serve any 
longer. The office ought to go to the country 
next time. It has been given to a town man fo* 


HIS FIRST ESTATE . 


9 


the past ten years. Frank Logan talks of run¬ 
ning on the Democratic side, and Jim Cowan 
wants to run against him. But it will take a 
stronger man than Cowan to beat Frank. You 
have a good many relatives in different parts of 
the county, and they are all good men. You are 
well known, are believed to be wealthy, a moral 
man, and a very successful farmer. The people 
think—” 

“ Don’t, Haberly,” protested Ellet. “If I am 
all that, I had better stay out of politics. If I am 
less than that, I don’t deserve an office.” 

“Well, this is in earnest. You can have it if 
you want it. It is a good thing. You think 
about it for a week or two, and we’ll talk 
again.” 

Then he allowed the conversation to drift in 
other lines, and, when the rain had ceased, Ellet 
Grant found his horse in the stalls up there behind 
the meeting-house, mounted, and rode home. 

He did not think Haberly had made any im¬ 
pression upon him. Office seeking was not in his 
line. It had never been indulged in by any of his 
family. He knew he would rather go on as he 
had been—happy at home, making money com¬ 
fortably, and never catching sight of an enemy— 
than to have all the political preferment even 
Haberly might name. 


10 


AN INDIANA MAN. 


“ There’s nothing in it,” he said, as he swung 
from the saddle, and led his horse through the big 
farm gate. 

Jim was busy with the feeding, and Ellet helped 
him, as he always did. When they had finished, 
the man went away across the fields to his hum¬ 
bler home, and Ellet took up the lantern to go to 
the house. He was elated in a way different from 
any he had ever known. This was a fine humor 
to be in. He enjoyed it. He stopped in front of 
the bays, put his hand across the manger, crowded 
full of fragrant hay, and stroked the smooth faces 
of his team. He put down the lantern again, 
shoved his hands in his pockets, and stared at the 
light, wondering how it would seem to be elected 
to office—must be a charm about it, surely. Lots 
of men went nearly wild. 

His sister stood on the back porch, and called 
him to supper. Father was reading before an 
open fire. He never ate more than two meals on 
Sunday. Mother was rocking contentedly near 
him, her small figure half lost in the spongy depths 
of a cushioned chair. 

Esther poured the tea, and asked her brother 
who had been at church, and what they had worn. 
Alice inquired about the music and the sermon; 
but Ellet was very unsatisfactory in all his report¬ 
ings. He called to his father, and told him, 


HIS FIRST ESTATE . 


11 


laughing, what Haberly had said. He received 
no response beyond one of pleased interest, and 
while the girls were clearing away the dishes he 
wandered to the library, and found himself wish¬ 
ing there was a book on “ County Politics, and 
How To Master It.” He tried to read a little 
from The Churchman , but found Haberly, and 
Hall, and Frank Logan, and Cowan, all drifting 
in between the lines. 

“ Come, this is nonsense,” he said, impatient 
that the vision still invited him. “Alice, let us 
have some music.” 

His sisters drew the folding doors between them 
and the smaller room, where father and mother 
were sitting. They took up the pieces which had 
come last from town, and sang them together. 
He went over to the piano, studied the bass, and 
added a rich, trained voice to their melody. From 
the later they passed to the older music, sometimes 
with the sheet before them, sometimes remember¬ 
ing the lines. The stately harmony of hymns; the 
deep, impassioned fervor of evangelical praise; the 
homely words that had hovered about belfries, 
and echoed through chancels with two centuries 
of approval upon them—these marked the close 
of Sunday. Mother pushed open the doors a little, 
and returned to her cushioned chair. Father had 
dropped his book, and was listening to his chil- 


12 


AN INDIANA MAN. 


dren’s voices, his whole great soul bathed in thank¬ 
fulness for countless mercies. 

Midnight came upon the farm-house, and found 
it hushed in sleep, while equi-distant upon either 
hand stood dual spirits, each named Happiness— 
one folding the borders 'of the day just gone, one 
waiting to usher in to-morrow. 

Ellet was dreaming. The ichor of official dei¬ 
ties was working in his veins. 


CHAPTER II. 


THE SPELLING-SCHOOL. 

Inside the school-house a motley, noisy crowd 
was busy with a score of themes. Candles, set 
on little brackets by the windows, gave light to 
the room. Around the stove some dozen men, 
just verging on majority, were chaffing each 
other, and laughing hoarsely at the banter of a 
pretty girl who sat on a plain poplar bench in a 
row of forms. She wore real furs, and seemed a 
center of attraction. They called her Sadie, and 
uncouth fellows from across the stove tossed her 
stentorian badinage, which she repaid with sofne 
allusion that aroused a laugh. Ellet’s entrance 
was noted and remarked; and for a time the 
place was comparatively quiet. 

He pushed forward with a sort of rudeness 
that did not seem to give offense, and, after warm¬ 
ing, turned and found a few acquaintances among 
the men who were seated. Then the general con¬ 
versation was resumed, a little milder than before; 
for any stranger brought restraint. Older men 
filled the benches on the left, and talked with 


13 


U 


AN INDIANA MAN. 


each other about the weather, Dave Edwards’ 
new barn, and the price of cattle. f /■ 

On the other side of the house women and 
girls were gathered. Among them one or two 
men appeared—brave fellows, gallants, who dared 
pursue their ladies into the stronghold of the 
enemy. Boys came in and went out noisily. They 
were playing some game in the school-yard, and 
yelled incessantly. 

Presently the teacher disengaged himself from 
a group of rather animated girls, and went to his 
desk. As he busied himself with some perfunc¬ 
tory preparations, the hub-bub subsided a little. 
Several men about the stove made a movement 
to secure seats. A few took off their hats. Then 
the teacher tapped upon his bell, and every sound 
within the house was hushed. The boys outside 
seemed madder than before. 

“Charley Clay and Jane Austin will choose 
up,” announced the teacher; and two persons 
began bustling around with suspicious tokens of 
surprise. They could hardly get away from de¬ 
taining hands. One was a slender man of thirty- 
five, dressed a little better than a farm hand, but 
not so well as the teacher; the other was a rosy 
girl of eighteen, formerly a pupil, and still the 
champion speller of the district. They came to 
the desk, and stood facing the teacher, the girl 


THE SPELLING SCHOOL. 


15 


sober and womanly now, the man all muffled up 
in dignity. 

“ The one choosing nearest the page I hold,” 
said the teacher, “ gets first choice.” 

Jane “ chose” 240; Charley said “Six hundred,” 
with great gallantry, knowing there could not be 
so many pages in the book. 

“It’s 311,” announced the teacher in a high- 
pitched voice, as one having authority; “Miss 
Austin’s first choice.” And he laid the book wide 
open before him, whereat four or five of those 
nearest pushed forward and scrutinized the page. 
He might have been cheating. 

.“Bill Adams,” said Jane, and a murmured “Of 
course! ” went round the house. Bill was a noted 
speller. 

“Alice Corse,” said Charley, and the people 
seemed a little surprised. Either Alice’s rank as 
a speller was not known, or some celebrated 
person near at liand had been overlooked. The 
two chosen came forward and took seats behind 
the desk. 

“Ed Ogden,” said Jane, very quickly, and 
there was a ripple of assent, as if the girl had 
scored a point. The boys outside abandoned 
their sport, and came clattering in, snatching 
hats from uncombed heads as they neared the 
door, and stamping to seats with an awful tread. 


16 


AN INDIANA MAN. 


Charley Clay waited a moment, and then called 
“Effie Wheeler.” 

“Ella Wheeler,” said Miss Austin, instantly, 
with an accent on the baptismal name. Evi¬ 
dently here was a family of spellers. 

“Jed Brooks.” 

“Doc Lough.” 

“Ed Hendrickson.” 

“ Mrs. Hamilton.” v 

* It was the first recognition of the family tie, 
and a suppressed titter directed attention to a 
buxom young woman with a white bonnet, who 
crowded past her seatmates and went forward to 
•her place at Miss Austin’s side. Mrs. Hamilton 
was evidently a bride, and this was her first pub¬ 
lic appearance in that newer relation. 

So the choosing went on. Each person took 
position on the bench which ran all about the 
school-room, giving place to nothing but the door. 
A few said “Wish to be excused,” in an unfa¬ 
miliar way; and these were always passed. At 
length all who cared to spell had been chosen, 
and had taken their places in one of the long 
lines. 

The teacher had all this time stood at his desk, 
with one elbow resting easily upon it, and one 
foot crossed upon the other, in an attitude of 
studied grace. He held a spelling-book, and 


THE SPELLING SCHOOL. 


17 


thrummed the leaves. Jane and Charley found 
places at the heads of their respective lines. 

“ I will appoint Seth Reed and John Rhinehart 
to keep tally,” was the next official announce¬ 
ment; and these two, non-combatants, were sup¬ 
plied with slates on which they entered double¬ 
entry accounts by drawing a straight line from 
top to bottom, and writing “Jane ” on one side, 
and “ Charley ” on the other. 

Then the spelling began. The teacher pro¬ 
nounced a word in turn to those on either 
side, and every time a miss was scored down went 
a white mark against Jane’s or Charley’s account. 
After proceeding some ten minutes the teacher 
turned over his book and hand lamp to a visiting 
pedagogue—a courtesy always extended. 

Twenty minutes of spelling, and then the 
teacher resumed his sway and announced an in¬ 
termission. He called for the reports of the tally- 
keepers, and when one said Jane’s side had missed 
more words than had Charley’s, a little clapping 
of hands in the camp of the latter proclaimed the 
sweets of victory. The other scorer could not 
make his figures quite agree with those just pub¬ 
lished. Great interest was awakened by his per¬ 
plexity. Poor Jane came forward, claiming a 
suspension of judgment. But when the tardy 
accountant said his slate showed she had lost by 


18 


AN INDIANA MAN. 


thirty-four words instead of thirty, the poor girl 
retired in a whirlwind of confusion. 

As soon as the recess was taken the troop of 
boys broke from the room as if it were a prison. 
They ran and leaped and yelled about the house 
like spirits from Bedlam. Older youths, and even 
adults, joined the crowds without. They formed 
a ring by joining hands, and round about it two 
figures flitted, while all the others sang: 

King William was King George’s son, 

And at the royal race he run; 

Upon his breast he wore a star 
Which was won in time of war. 

A girl was running about the circle, pursued 
by a youth who carried a handkerchief. She had 
dropped it behind him in passing, and he broke 
from the line to answer her challenge. If he 
shall overtake her before she make the circuit 
and reach the place he occupied, a kiss will 
reward him—after a struggle. How swiftly he 
ran! How the girl sped! How Ellet, look¬ 
ing on from a distance, held his breath and 
hoped for her—no, for him! Now she is safe. 
No, he caught her; but she was nearly home, 
and claimed a little grace. He was not a rigid 
collector, and so released her and went forward 
with the handkerchief, while half the gathered 
boys taunted him. 


THE SPELLING SCHOOL. 


19 


“Cowardy calf!” they cried, in great derision. 
He dropped the handkerchief behind his pet 
divinity, and she had to be shown how favored 
she was among women. She snatched the cam¬ 
bric with great haste, but there her hurry ended. 
The chase was a mild one. He could not force 
her to catch him, and so stepped into the circle, 
and the song went forward: 

Go, look to the east; go, look to the west; 

Go, look to the one that you love best. 

If he’s not here to take your part, 

Go, choose another with all your heart. 

Presently the school bell rang again, and then 
the tumbling through that narrow door suggested 
Noah’s famed menagerie, frightened at the flood. 
So far as possible every person took again the 
seat he held before recess, and order was restored. 

Mary Green, with great solemnity, recited a 
comic poem. Billy Etherby, chubby and rollick¬ 
ing in ten years of health, made far more comic a 
doleful strain about the stars. Hetty Webster 
read a paper, full of allusions to “a certain young 
man,” or u a girl from Bruce’s Lake;” full of 
queries as to “ why Bert Osburn wears his good 
clothes all the time,” each of which was listened 
to with gaping interest, and laughed at immoder¬ 
ately in the pauses wise Hetty made. 

Then the real event of the evening came. 


20 


AN INDIANA MAN. 


“ Stand up, and spell down,” commanded the 
teacher; and all the chosen found their feet amid 
a din of shuffling. 

“ Balcony.” 

The word was fired at Jane Austin with a dis¬ 
tinctness that defied misunderstanding. 

“ Barony.” 

It was Charley Clay’s turn, and he spelled the 
word with elaborate plainness. It was a sort of 
challenge and response. 

“ Fallacy.” 

Jane’s second spelled and missed. “ F-a-l-l-a-s-y,” 
he said, then covered his face in shame, for all the 
crowded house held its breath in astonishment. 
He sat down, and the word was passed across the 
room. Charley Clay exulted a little. It was first 
blood for him. Ten minutes saw as many spellers 
go down before some stubborn words, and on the 
third round the teacher pronounced “ million.” 

u M-i-l-l-i-o-n,” spelled a girl, sweetly. 

“ Bilious,” said the teacher to Ellet. 

“ B-i-double 1 —” Then he hesitated. Surely 
there was only one 1 . He was confused, and 
finished the word: “i-o-u-s.” 

“Next!” exclaimed the teacher, with judicial 
severity. 

Twenty minutes saw all the spellers in their 
seats save four, who stood like lonesome teeth in 


THE SPELLING SCHOOL. 


21 


a hard-used comb. They spelled rapidly, without 
hesitation, and with a constant undercurrent of 
defiance for the other side. Charley Clay and 
Alice Corse stood alone against Jane Austin and 
Bill Adams. In a moment of weakness poor 
Charley went down. Some young men near the 
door were conversing aloud. 

“ Keep order, there,” warned the teacher. The 
trespass was modified, but not abated. The 
teacher strolled back, pronouncing and listening 
conscientiously. The youths grew bolder, and 
laughed aloud. 

u Shut up, or get out!” The master was furi¬ 
ous. He towered like a fate before the head and 
front of the offending. The youth “shut up,” but 
presently he went out also, though he preserved a 
discreet care as to his movements. 

Five minutes more and Jane Austin was alone, 
facing her fair antagonist. The interest was 
intense. Every word pronounced was followed 
from the teacher to the speller, and when it had 
dropped, correctly framed, from ruby lips, the 
people waited breathlessly for the next assault. 
There was no defiance in the spelling now: it was 
prompt, precise, mechanical. But a nervous strain 
was upon the audience. Age and youth, gallant 
and girl, were all attention. It was io o’clock, 
and these two seemed determined to spell cor- 


22 


AN INDIANA MAN. 


rectly till daylight came. The teacher was look¬ 
ing through the book for difficult words. He 
wished to end the agony. 

“Sieve,” “seine,” “frankincense,” all the array 
was marshalled, and the fair young woman who 
had spelled so glibly every harder word tripped 
on “until,” and sat down, crushed with a 
double 1. 

Alice Corse spelled it easily, and looked to the 
teacher. No, it was late enough. He would not 
try to spell her down. There was a little clapping 
of hands, a little flutter of triumph from Charley 
Clay’s side, and then a moment’s pause, while the 
teacher thanked his audience for its good behavior, 
invited “ each and every one to return two weeks 
from to-night,” and opened the door with all the 
grace of a Chesterfield—grace that changed to 
rage as a huge log, stood upon the step and leaned 
against the door by the ejected young man, came 
tumbling into the room. 

But he was helpless. His reign was over. 
School was dismissed, and he was plain Jim Fennel 
now. The log was removed, while rude boys 
shouted their glee. 

Youths gathered about the door, chaffing each 
other, holding their places against much shoving 
this way and that. As the crowd filed slowly out, 
girls would see an elbow projected into that narrow 


THE SPELLING SCHOOL- 


23 


lane by some Darby who hoped that this, his Joan, 
might be kind to-night. 

“ Can I see you safe home?” 

Month-old derision sprang from her refusal, 
and a nest of mad rogues proclaimed his scorn. 
But some were fortunate. Fair girl with hood 
and tippet, framing a face of guilelessness and 
health, would drop a timid hand upon that awk¬ 
ward arm, and hurry through the door before the 
peal of ribaldry could come; hurry into the high¬ 
way, then walk more slowly home, pausing at the 
doorway, giving goodbye again and again, then 
living in ecstacy till the silent winter night erased 
all wakefulness, and poured a flood of dreams 
about her bed. 

While the youthful crowd was filing out, 
Ellet shook hands with the older and prosier 
voters about the stove, and shook them 
warmly. 

“ Can’t spell much, can you, Ellet?” laughed 
one jolly old fellow of the opposite family of 
political faith. 

“ I always try to follow the million,” said the 
younger man, and his hearers enjoyed the moder¬ 
ate jest. -v 

“ Come home with me, and stay all night,” said 
Dave Edwards, gray-haired, but vigorous as any 
of his boys. 


24 


AN INDIANA MAN. 


“No, you better stay with us to-night, Ellet,” 
interposed an uncle. But young Mr. Grant con¬ 
sidered the first invitation the better one, and 
after becoming hesitation, accepted it. He could 
count on his uncle’s vote and influence in the com¬ 
ing campaign, while some labor might be needed 
in the Edwards vineyard. 


CHAPTER III. 


BEGINNING THE CANVASS. 

In the language of the Republican, the “ polit¬ 
ical pot was boiling.” That was a phrase grown 
hoary with age in Indiana. Ellet Grant had con¬ 
cluded to seek the service of the public, and he 
had come to the spelling-school chiefly because it 
was a good way to begin the canvass. He 
believed he could secure the nomination for sheriff, 
and was comfortably confident of an election in 
that event. True, the party majority was very 
small, and likely at any time to be smaller, or 
even overturned entirely by a good national nomi¬ 
nation on the other side, or by some potent local 
issue. The Democrats used to carry it with 
Hendricks whenever they chose to run him; Til- 
den carried the county in 1876, and Hancock 
again in 1880. One other time, when the opposi¬ 
tion raised the cry that the auditor’s books ought 
to be opened, they carried it again from top to 
bottom. Now and then a treasurer, clerk or 
recorder from the enemy’s camp had broken 
through the lines, and won an election from an 


26 


AN INDIANA MAN . 


unsavory nominee, even while the rest of the ticket 
was saved. Added to this was the undoubted 
personal strength of Frank Logan, upon whom 
the Democrats had already fixed as their nominee 
for sheriff. But spite of it all, Ellet did not fear 
defeat. The party’s normal majority, the recent 
fairly good record in county affairs, and his own 
strength in a large and influential circle of rela¬ 
tives, would overcome, he believed, any possibility 
of defeat. 

So he sauntered out into the night with his 
friends, almost the last to leave the school-room, 
and they all walked slowly home. The farmer’s 
wife was abed, but her good nature was proof 
against trespass, and the noisy entry into the house. 
was in no wise tempered. 

“ William, go down cellar and get some apples 
and cider,” said the farmer, as he drew up the 
chairs to the fireplace. “ We keep the stove back 
thereto warm the room,” he said, rather gaily, 
“ but I burn a fireplace myself, because I like it.” 

While William was absent in the caverns under 
the house, young David, last born and favorite of 
the patriarch, invaded the kitchen, and returned 
with the fried cakes that hold in their curling 
brown sides a key to rural felicity. 

U I don’t want no glasses to drink cider out of,” 
said the farmer, noting with gratification that 


BEGINNING THE CANVASS . 


27 


Ellet had chosen a tincup, and was helping him¬ 
self to a brimming measure of the beverage. 
u The boys and girls like glasses better, and that's 
all right; but I take more comfort out of the old 
ways.” 

The four young men sat with their father and 
his guest, in a semi-circle about the blazing hickory 
upon the hearth, chatting with each other, or in¬ 
terjecting, with a pleasant deference, a question 
or comment in the principal talk. The late 
luncheon was nearly at an end, when Ellet turned 
to his host and launched the message he had come 
to bring: 

“ Uncle Dave, I am thinking of making the 
race for sheriff this year. What do you think? ” 

The boys were all attention to that. Three of 
them were voters, and the fourth would miss it 
by so short a time that, barring the simple act of 
suffrage, he, too, was a man. 

“Well,” drawled Edwards, growing serious at 
once, “I dono how the land lays. Who else is 
out ? ” 

“No one on our side. The Democrats will 
nominate Frank Logan, I hear.” 

“Well, you ought to make a good race, Ellet.” 
This with feeling, and a frank facing of the 
younger man. “ But it will cost more than it 
comes to, won’t it? ” 


28 AN INDIANA MAN ,. 

“ Oh, I think not. It will cost nothing for a 
corruption fund—that’s certain. I believe a man 
ought to be chosen for office because the people 
want him; not because he is the most successful 
purchaser of votes. I shall make the canvass 
simply on my merits, and if the Republicans 
want some other man there, that settles it. I will 
get out of the way.” 

“ Good enough! good enough!” warmly. Then 
with less feeling, “How do you find things so 
far? ” 

“ Well, honest, Uncle Dave, I find men inclined 
to encourage me. They tell me wherever I have 
gone it is time the out-of-town districts had some 
representation in the court-house, and they even 
seem to think I am the man.” And he laughed 
a little, to wash away the vanity. 

“ Good enough, um-m-m. Well, if that clock 
aint striking ’leven. You’re tired, Ellet. We 
better all go to bed.” 

And so the matter ended; but the candidate 
felt hopeful of the support of the Edwards family. 
Coming here for the night was a good idea. One 
of the boys took a candle and led him to the big 
spare room. There was an ancient chest of 
drawers, surmounted with a swinging mirror that 
had been broken across some chilly night by the 
too ardent heat of the candle. There was a pic- 


BEGINNING THE CANVASS. 


29 


ture of “ Washington Crossing the Delaware,” 
and a flashy print representing U A Home in the 
West.” The floor was covered with a carpet of 
rag, woven long ago, but still untarnished; its reds 
and blues and greens and yellows appearing with 
that method known as “ hit and miss.” The 
paper window blinds were drawn exactly half 
way down, and back of them swept white muslin 
curtains, relieved with red rosettes and gaudy 
feathers. The mammoth bed was sentineled with 
four tall posts. It held an open net of crossing 
ropes that creaked as he clambered between the 
soft wool sheets, adjusting itself to his weight, but 
rising to complaint again as he turned from side 
to side, exulting, fearing, hoping, planning for the 
future. The great clock by the chimney down 
stairs invoked attention by a premonitory whirr, 
and then tolled off twelve. 

Ellet sank to sleep with visions of a following 
both numerous and earnest, strong enough to bear 
down any opposition he might encounter when he 
came to town. 


CHAPTER IV. 


FIRST LESSONS IN GOVERNMENT. 

One Sunday afternoon in May, Esther Grant 
walked home from church with young John 
Haberly. If she had followed her own inclination 
in the matter she never would-have invited him, 
for Haberly did not enjoy the most savory of 
reputations in certain moral lines; but the ante- 
convention campaign was now open, and this was 
a vastly useful man to Ellet. He stood as the 
intermediary between the staunch purity of that 
young man’s political methods and the more prac¬ 
tical rules and elastic consciences of the workers. 
He was handsome, acute, possessed of something 
resembling culture, and was undoubted authority, 
when he chose to express himself, on young Grant’s 
chances for success. 

“Oh, Ellet is doing nicely,” he said, in answer 
to the girl’s inquiry. “He is popular all over 
the county, and would have no opposition even 
in town, but for the notion they entertain there 
that his father is too strong a temperance man.” 

“Can one be too strong a temperance man?” 
asked Esther, in surprise. 


FIRST LESSONS IN GOVERNMENT. 


31 


“With politicians, yes. They urge that his 
father is not true to the party; that he trains with 
the Prohibitionists, and that Beal was defeated 
two years ago through your father’s efforts for 
the cold-water ticket.” 

“You certainly do not blame father for favor¬ 
ing temperance, do you? ” 

“Not at all. But active work for that party 
may put a man where he can ask few favors of 
any other.” 

All that was good and noble in the girl rebelled 
at the doctrine. A Moloch could not be more 
merciless than that. She was as sure that her 
father was right as that the decalogue was wise. 
Not a shadow of doubt could enter her heart. If, 
then, he were right, if wine be a mocker and 
strong drink be raging, what need a man fear for 
opposing them? Why should he—how could he 
be punished? And who dare visit that wrath on 
his children? Was it not enough that he was 
right ? 

But she said little of all this to Haberly. She 
was bound up in the hope of her brother’s success, 
and had determined to win a stronger support 
from this ally. She had learned in the conversa¬ 
tion at home that Haberly could do things no one 
else dared attempt; that he was very influential 
even among church members, and yet maintained 




32 


AN INDIANA MAN. 


a strong place in the less critical ranks of the poli¬ 
ticians. He was a man who could preside at a 
temperance meeting one night, and ask for a 
reduction of the dramshop license the next. He 
could make a telling speech to the graduating 
class on Friday, and extend all the courtesies of 
the city to visiting bacchanals on Saturday. He 
could sit in his pew in the morning, smooth shaven 
and genteel, attentive to the sermon and not neg¬ 
lectful of the contribution box, and in the afternoon 
could open a bottle of wine in Sautern’s back 
room, and play seven-up to see who should pay for 
it. He was strongly opposed to vice and drunken¬ 
ness, yet unalterable in his defense of license. 

He sat in the cool parlor of Wesley Grant’s big 
farm-house after dinner, and enjoyed to the full 
the entertainment of his host’s charming daughters. 
Esther’s loveliness, her vivacity, her mental 
endowments, surprised Haberly. But he turned 
from her to a deeper wonder at the charms of her 
younger sister. Alice just touched the borders of 
womanhood. Her native talents had been trained 
and polished in the best of schools. She was 
devoted to music, and made each Sabbath after¬ 
noon a season of melody. Whether she caught 
her sister’s spirit of service in Ellet’s cause, one 
could not say; but surely her voice never rose so 
sweetly to the clear heights of song, and her hands 


FIRST LESSONS IN GOVERNMENT. 


33 


never drew from the keys strains so entrancing. 

“ You have outdone yourself, Alice,” said her 
father proudly, as he left the parlor to the younger 
people. 

Afternoon had drifted into evening. Wesley 
Grant strolled from the house, his wife beside him, 
and looked over the farm. Ever since they had 
owned a home this had been one of the weekly 
ordinances. They wandered through a mossy 
gate by the garden, and passed into the orchard. 

“ That russet isn’t dead, after all,” said the 
farmer; and then, continuing in the half musing 
way he always employed in these rambles: “The 
row of pearmains is looking well; too much sod 
about them, though. The boys don’t plow as I 
used to. Good mind to sow the orchard down in 
oats next year, just to get it cultivated. These 
old trees are going. Can’t expect much more 
from them. We set them out the spring Ellet 
was born. You held them straight, and I packed 
the soil about the roots. What a heap of comfort 
we have had from this orchard.” 

At the farther side they went through the bars 
that had long served occasional use as a gate, and 
passed down the east lane between the fields—the 
woman silent, almost content; the man talking 
on as if his thoughts became audible on these 
Sunday strolls. 



34 


AN INDIANA MAN. 


“ Meadow getting pretty short already, and this 
only May. We are needing rain. Better put that 
held in clover another year. Wheat coming on 
splendidly. Boys have this piece about ready for 
corn. Guess I will plant that York State seed 
here; it matures quicker than our larger kind.” 
Then he hummed a little of Alice’s last song, and 
continued: 

“Did a big thing when we hauled that sand 
hill into this swamp; raise pretty good crops on 
both places now. Must have the boys move this 
fence next winter, and throw these fields together. 
Since we got the woods pasture we don’t need so 
many fences. House and barns look pretty good 
from here.” They had reached the’ farther 
fields, and were crossing to the west lane. “ Don’t 
know as good farm buildings in the county; but 
the granary ought to be painted. Pretty good 
house; pretty good house. Pretty good children 
in it. Wish Ellet wouldn’t run for sheriff.” 

“So do I.” 

This from the wife—promptly, fervently. 
Then she was silent again. Somehow, Wesley 
Grant was silent after that. They strolled back 
through the west lane, they looked at the stock, 
stroked the sides of the large, gentle, odorous 
cows; repelled advances of nibbling sheep; 
smoothed the silken coats of the horses that were 


FIRST LESSONS IN GOVERNMENT. 


35 


enjoying their one day in seven; inspected the 
poultry-houses whose tenants were already re¬ 
tired, and counted the nests where hermit hens— 
misanthropes—sat silent on comfortless eggs, ex¬ 
pectant of chickens as comfortless. 

Then into the barn, across unlittered floors, 
under mows yet stored with hay, and past cribs 
yet rich with corn; looking into stalls where 
comfort waited, winter and summer. Then 
across the grassy yard as the sun went down, and 
so to their bench on the porch. Had they worked 
years to make this home? Were their hands 
hard and their hair white and their frames stiff¬ 
ened by unceasing labor? Yes, but eyes and ears 
and brain were full of payment now. Hear those 
voices in the parlor. Know that loving children 
are happy there. See the strong horses, the 
smooth cattle, the contented sheep; hear that 
melody of milking-time—white streams against 
bright tin; see the last ray of sunshine come like 
a flaming herald across the fields, the woods, the 
orchard, till it sweeps to them and touches their 
very feet with beauty, then vanishes, and brings 
soft twilight to receive the dying day. 

See that black cloud on the very verge of the 
world, with his foldings of silver, his centre of 
burnished gold. 



CHAPTER V. 


HOSTILITIES DECLARED. 

Next morning John Haberly met Sautern in the 
market, where each had come for the day’s supply 
of meat. They walked away together. 

“ Saut,” said the polished man, “I was out to 
Pretty Lake Church yesterday, and went home to 
dinner with Ellet Grant’s folks. He is going to 
be a candidate before the convention.” 

“ Yes, I know it. Wants to be sheriff.” This 
somewhat surlily. 

“And I shouldn’t wonder if he succeeded. Ellet 
has been doing some pretty good work. And then 
he has relatives all over the county. He would 
make a strong race.” 

“ Oh, anybody will make a strong race.” 

“Well, I don’t know. If the Democrats 
nominate Frank Logan, and it looks as if 
they would, we don’t want to take anything for 
granted.” 

“If we can’t elect anybody we- can’t elect 
nobody.” The saloon-keeper was not in a pleasant 
mood. 


88 


HOSTILITIES DECLARED. 


37 


“ What do you mean by that? ” asked Haberly, 
for the epigrams of Sautern were sometimes very 
profound. 

“ If we are not strong enough to elect our man 
—no matter who he is—just because he is our man, 
we are not strong enough to elect anybody. It is 
not a question of candidates; it is a question of 
party.” 

“ In my opinion we are not strong enough to 
elect a man regardless of who he is. Recollect 
we lost Beal two years ago because too many 
Republicans were down on him.” 

“Yes,” retorted Sautern, hotly, “and Beal was 
beaten by this same Ellet Grant’s father. What 
right has he to come up and ask for favors?” 

“Well, Beal was a pretty rocky nomination, 
Saut,” said Haberly, persuasively. 

“But he was nominated, wasn’t he? That’s 
enough for you and me to know. I’m agin it. I 
tell you now, John, I’m agin Ellet’s nomination 
all the time.” 

They had reached Sautern’s side gate. He 
opened it angrily, and walked up to the house, in 
the evident mood of a power to be placated. 
Haberly wanted to stand there and argue awhile. 
He did not like to leave so potent an actor in an 
ill humor. But he could do or say no more. He 
went on to his home, where his sisters awaited 


38 


AN INDIANA MAN. 


him, and spent the morning after breakfast in the 
barn, where he pretended to be busy with a har¬ 
ness, but where he was in fact sitting on an 
inverted half-bushel basket, studying out some 
way to enlist the workers without sacrificing 
Grant’s candidacy. He knew if Sautern were un¬ 
opposed he would run Cowan for sheriff, and Jim 
could not be elected. The one redeeming thing 
about him was an honorable discharge from the 
army of the United States. He was past middle 
life, had been a member of the legislature, 
and was “ favorably mentioned ” for re-election; 
but his course in the house and his record at home 
would bar him from any election, no matter who 
backed him. His public and private life were such 
that good people simply did not want Jim Cowan 
for any office. 

All these things hung very heavily upon 
Haberly’s mind, and along toward noon he washed 
his hands and went down town. He entered the 
hardware store, and talked the matter over with 
Sims, of the county central committee. 

“Oh, you are worrying too much,” said the 
merchant. “ Sautern is valuable, but he don’t 
run the county. If Ellet gets the delegates he can 
have the nomination. He has nearly a month of 
time to work yet. The way things lay now that 
office ought to go to the country this year, but no 



HOSTILITIES DECLARED. 


39 


one can tell how it will turn out. As a member 
of the committee of course I have nothing to say; 
but don’t you be getting mad at Sautern or any¬ 
body else. What we all want is harmony.” 

While they spoke, a man of sixty years, upright, 
rugged and strong, with - the beard of a patriarch 
and the eye of a boy, entered the store. 

“ Hello, Haberly,” he cried, cheerily. “ Hello, 
men. My boys want two more of your plow 
points for the iron beam: one with cutter, one 
without. Seems as if this summer’s plowing was 
costing more than the land was worth. Haberly, 
thank your stars you live in town.” 

“ I’d thank my stars if I owned a farm like 
yours, Wesley,” retorted the younger man. “The 
dinner I ate there yesterday tastes good yet.” 

While the clerk was filling the farmer’s orders, 
Haberly sounded him on his views of his son’s 
candidacy, and the campaign in general 

“ Well, I don’t want Ellet to run,” said the old 
man; “but he concluded to make the race, and 
well, he’s of age, you know,” laughingly. 

“ Some of the boys in town talk of running 
Cowan against him,” said Haberly, as a feeler. 
The old man looked very keenly at the smooth 
junior, his bright eyes twinkling. 

“ You want me to say something. May be I 
shouldn’t do it; but you men know I always 


AN INDIANA MAN. 


40 

speak my mind. Cowan can’t be elected. I 
wouldn’t insure Ellet’s election; but he will stand 
as far ahead of Cowan as you will, John, ahead of 
Sautern.” Haberly removed his hat, and bowed. 
“ I suppose your heelers here in town will oppose 
Ellet because I fought Beal two years ago. Yet 
I was right. Beal died of delirium tremens less 
than a month after election. He was in no way 
fit to be auditor of this county, and the man that 
beat him—barring politics—is without a single 
objection.” 

u Did you work for the man that beat Beal?” 
asked the central committeeman. 

“No, I worked for the Prohibition candidate, 
and he got enough Republican votes to show you 
fellows that decency in nominations is the surest 
way to success in elections.” 

Several men had drifted into the store, some to 
buy, some to listen. 

“ Would you oppose Cowan’s election in 
the same way if he were nominated?” asked 
Sims. 

“ I certainly should. It isn’t good politics for 
me to say so, but I give you fair warning, Cowan 
or no man like him can be elected in this county. 
If things have come to that pass in the county 
seat, better make the offices appointive at once, 
and give Sautern the patronage.” 




HOSTILITIES DECLARED. 


41 


Something of a laugh, a little of applause 
greeted the sentiment. Wesley Grant made a 
few remarks about the weather, paid for his hard¬ 
ware, asked the price of clover seed, and went 
out, sturdy and unimpaired as he came in. 

Haberly rocked vigorously on a deal chair, 
chewing a toothpick and trying to assume a face 
of lesser gravity. 

“Wish we hadn’t waked him up,” he said to 
Sims. 

“ Might as well have it out one time as another,” 
said the committeeman, and he looked across the 
street at Sautern’s saloon, where the proprietor 
was already receiving a report of the farmer’s 
expressions—report that won the newsbearer a 
generous drink from the proprietor’s own bottle. 


CHAPTER VI. 


HABERLY AND ESTHER. 

The day for the primaries was at hand. They 
would be held on Friday, and the following 
Monday was the date for the county convention. 
The Democratic nominations would not occur 
until two weeks later. It was thought by the 
shrewder of that party that as they must of 
necessity be on the defensive, some advantage 
might be gained by waiting. Furthermore, the 
leaders felt assured the fight for sheriff, on the 
Republican side, lay between Ellet Grant and 
James Cowan. On their own Frank Logan was 
conceded the nomination. Should they hold their 
convention first, and name their man, the Repub¬ 
licans might be afraid to choose Cowan, owing to 
his bad record, and the enmity against him in the 
out townships. Ellet Grant would give them a 
harder struggle, and they were not in position to 
invite difficulties. Beyond the sheriff they had 
really little or no hope of electing any one, but 
they would name a full ticket, and were already 
working like beavers. Taken first and last, the 

42 


HABERLY AND ESTHER. 


43 


situation had never been quite so interesting to 
the politicians, and no farmer was so base he 
could not entertain at least four candidates a 
week. 

Thursday evening John Haberly drove out to 
the Grant farm for a final consultation with his 
friend. Ellet was not at home. He had gone 
over to Uncle Dave Edwards’, to arrange some 
details for to-morrow’s work, but would soon 
return. Esther met the politician, and invited 
him to a seat on the broad porch. 

“Be honest, Mr. Haberly,” she said; “have 
you been to tea? ” 

“Miss Esther, I cannot tell a lie. I have not, 
and am hungry as a harvest hand.” 

“Then you shall have a treat. Sit here and 
tell father about politics till I call you.” 

“ You are not abandoning me to starvation, and 
your father to torture, are you?” he asked. 

“ No, truly. You shall have your supper. And 
as for father, he will take care of himself, I think. 

She went gaily into the house and prepared for 
the entertainment of the guest. The young man 
found Wesley not so easily approached on the 
subject of politics as might have been expected. 
They all knew his position, and he had nothing to 
alter or explain. He hoped Ellet would be nomi¬ 
nated, now that he had entered the field, but 


44 


AN INDIANA MAN . 


would clearly have preferred that his family re¬ 
main uncontaminated; for with all deference to 
Haberly, in whom he recognized an active mana¬ 
ger and a passably clean man, the sturdy old 
farmer had little use for politicians. No one 
related to him had ever asked for office, and this 
was a matter of keen gratification when he 
saw fit to protest against some odious nomina¬ 
tion or measure. He held that honest men could 
not make a living in politics; that those who 
managed canvasses and kept within the law must 
have ample means outside the revenue from 
parties. It was his contention that official prefer¬ 
ment was largely bartered and sold by the men 
who could control the most votes, to the men who 
would pay the most for them. 

“What men like me must do,” he said, “is to 
stay out entirely and watch you fellows. While 
you rule well, we can let you go; but when 

you abuse power, we must take it away from 
you.” 


Haberly had treated the matter lightly, assur¬ 
ing his host that parties were necessary, and this 
fact made management also necessary. 

“Of course we do a shady thing now and 
then,” he admitted, laughingly; “but the Demo¬ 
crats are so corrupt we have to. Fight the devil 
with fire, you know.” 


HABERLY AND ESTHER. 


45 


“Would you fight Niagara with water?” 
asked the farmer. 

“No, probably not.” 

“Well, then, don’t talk of fighting the devil 
with fire. He can stand that longer than you 
can. Fight the devil with purity. He hasn’t 
a shield in all hell thick enough to turn one dart 
of truth. Believe me, John, if you have a devil 
to fight, honesty—not treachery; soberness—not 
rum; light—not darkness, is what you want to 
use.” 

“Mr. Haberly! Mr. Haberly!” called Esther 
from the dining room, “come in to tea. I heard 
father using some of the warmest words. You 
two must not get angry. Look at that table. 
How can men quarrel about a thing like politics?” 

He stopped at the door and lifted his hands in 
a comic amazement. China and silver that an 
earlier Grant had hidden at the family home in 
Maryland when the British burned Washington; 
linen that Esther had spun and Alice had woven; 
tea that heated an urn as old as the Northwest 
Territory, and sugar that came from the depths 
of the forest when winter grew tender in the 
arms of spring; bread that proved the housewife, 
and butter as fragrant as clover—all this he saw. 
But chiefest of all to the sated palate was a heaping 
dish of crimson cherries—the first of the season. 


46 


AN INDIANA MAN. 


“ Wherever did you get them ? ” he. gasped. 

“ In our little garden,” said the girl, enjoying 
his tribute to her taste and care. Haberly grew 
impressive. 

Miss Grant,” he said, “if I could sit down 
once a day to a feast like that, I would never 
touch politics again; never—not a single pol.” 

“I shall tell your sisters that you reviled their 
housekeeping.” 

“You may; and in the light of this spread, 
they would tell you I was justified.” 

She poured his tea, and presided at the little 
table; she told him bits of history about the 
service, and gave him glimpses into a home life 
more pure and happy than he had thought to be 
possible. She drew from him his views of her 
brother s prospects, and when he had finished his 
meal, permitted him to sit in the room while she 
pinned on a broad apron and “did the tea things.” 

Throughout it all the charm of music came to 
them from the parlor. Alice had taken her place 
at the piano, and was closing her day with the 
melody suited to her mood. To-night it was 
almost pensive, and the faithful fingers that had 
been busy since sunrise in the homely cares of 
life, touched gently, lovingly, the springs of sound, 
mingling the minor chords with richer strains, as 
sorrow must temper the hey-dey of joy. Com- 


HABERLY AND ESTHER . 


47 


fort came as the moments passed, and when 
Esther led the guest from the dining room, Alice 
was reveling in the easy, old-time music they 
loved so well. 

“Come and sing,” she said, without pausing 
from her prelude. No lamp had been lighted. 
Twilight is welcome in the farm-house. They 
stood behind her and joined their voices until, 
indeed, 

The night was filled with music, 

And the cares that infested the day 
Had folded their tents, like the Arabs, 

And silently stolen away. 

“ Ellet is late,”' said Wesley Grant, as the young 
people walked out on the porch. 

“ If I knew where Edwards lived I would drive 
over,and go onto town,” said Haberly. “I ought 
to be there now.” 

“ You turn north at the brick school-house, you 
know,” said Esther. 

John Haberly had an inspiration. 

“You get into my buggy,” he said to the girl; 
“ go with me to Edwards’, unless we meet Ellet 
on the way, and then come back with him. I 
would get lost if I undertook to find the way.” 

It did not occur to Esther that John Haberly, 
practical politician, knew that road and all other 
roads in Fairview County. There was just one 


48 


AN INDIANA MAN. 


instant of hesitation, and then Wesley Grant said: 
“You will most likely meet him on the way.” 
And she took that for assent. Ten minutes later 
she was driving swiftly behind Haberly’s team, 
past the rippling fields of ripening wheat, between 
broad acres of springing corn, under as mellow a 
moonlight as ever flooded the fields of Andalusia. 

They met Ellet half way to the Edwards farm, 
and Haberly listened to the last report and gave 
his final instructions. Then Esther was lifted to 
her brother’s side, and with him returned home. 
He was sanguine of success in the primaries now, 
and after that depended on the strength he felt 
sure of developing to silence any antagonism in 
town. He was so full of the affair that he paid 
slight attention to Esther. If her mood was 
changed, he did not notice it. If she had sent her 
thoughts roving in unknown fields, it was not evi¬ 
dent to him. If simple contact with a man who 
did wrong—if a certain sympathy with him— 
shocked her less than formerly, her brother was 
too busy now to see it. The primaries must be 
carried. 


CHAPTER VII. 


THE GANG DEFIED. 

John Haberly drove on to town, and the first 
man he met as he stepped from his buggy was 
Sautern. 

“ Where you been?’’ demanded the dictator. 

“ Out at Grant’s.” 

“That fool Ellet still think he is running for 
sheriff?” 

u Yes, he seems to. How are things here?” 

This last in compliment to Sautern. Haberly 
knew how things were quite as well as the other, 
but he had often found it pay to feign ignorance 
and flatter a fool. 

“Just as they was. John, it aint no use for you 
to try and nominate that man.” 

“Make a good candidate. Make a good sheriff, 
too,” said Haberly, as he tied his horses in front 
of the saloon, and lifted their collars to free the 
sharp hairs of the manes. Then the two men walked 
into the bar-room, and stood at the far corner, Sau¬ 
tern talking earnestly, as a man sure of the right, yet 
inclined to be charitable to one who could not 
read as he could. 


49 


50 


AN INDIANA MAN. 


“ Good enough sheriff, mebby, but I tell you it 
won’t do. Now, just look at it, John. Here he 
is—a man that never goes into a saloon; a man 
that turns up his nose at the boys. He fixes up 
in a tailor-made suit of clothes, and drives a fancy 
team into town of a Sunday, and sets up there in 
church as proud as a jaybird. He’s a hymn-book 
feller and—” 

“ I go to church myself, you know,” Haberly 
reminded him. 

“ Yes, but it don’t hurt you, John. You make 
yourself solid with the boys, and you keep your¬ 
self solid. They know it don’t mean no harm 
with you; but Ellet’s too fancy. He’s a sort of 
holy-water man—thinks he purifies whoever he 
touches. Now, he won’t put up no money in 
here. When the boys asks for a drink on his 
account, must I say: ‘He ain’t buyin’ nothin’?’ 
Why, they’ll say: ‘Damn such a candidate!’ They 
won’t whoop it up for him. They won’t vote for 
him. Now, you go around this town to-night, 
and you’ll find Jim Cowan solid with every 
last man of them. He put up a fifty with 
me yesterday, and he says: ‘ Saut,’ says he, 

‘ I don’t want no friend of mine to be out 
nothing on my account. Take this and set 
out something for the boys.’ He done the 
same thing at Ringer’s and the same thing 



THE GANG DEFIED. 


51 


at Steele’s; only he only give them twenty-five 
apiece.” 

“Put up a hundred before the primaries?” 

“ That’s what he done.” 

“Where did he get it?” 

“That’s none of my business, and it’s none of 
your business.” 

“It is some of my business. He has owed me 
house rent for the past seven years, and told me 
just last Saturday he didn’t have a dollar.” 

“You was tryin’ to squeeze him just before 
convention, was you?” 

“ I was trying to get my own.” 

“Well, you’ll get your own, as you call it, when 
he’s elected—just the same as I will get mine— 
and not a minute before.” Sautern was dropping 
his friendly tone. It had not seemed to win 
Haberly. He was getting ugly. “You can’t do 
any good with a man that cuts the saloons. If 
you don’t know that you don’t know anything 
about politics.” 

“Ellet hasn’t cut the saloons,” protested 
Haberly. 

“Yes he has. He passed my place four times 
Saturday, and never come in once. No more 
does he go in any place. Ringer and Steele feels 
just as I do. You go over there to the bar and 
ask them fellows what they think of Ellet Grant 


52 


AN INDIANA MAN. 


for sheriff. Just try it. Let me tell you another 
thing. Now, less than a month ago, old Wesley 
Grant went into Sims’ hardware store to get a 
plow point. They got to talking about Jim Cowan 
running for sheriff, and he—old Wesley—ups and 
says if Jim is nominated he will bolt the ticket, 
just as he did when Beal was nominated two years 
ago. That aint goin’ to do. The party don’t 
warm much to a man that kicks it every time he 
gets into a bad temper.” 

“Sautern,” said Haberly suddenly, “ suppose 
Ellet Grant is nominated without sweetening you 
up any; Will you support him?” 

“No, I won’t. You put that down strong. 
I won’t. No more will Ringer or Steele. He’s 
awful proud of the church endorsement, and the 
lodge endorsement, and the sewing society en¬ 
dorsement. Let’s see them elect him.” 

“But you are doing just what you blame 
Wesley for doing.” 

“Well, that’s all right. I ain’t askin’ no offices. 
I’m giving them out.’ ; 

“ You are 

“Yes, lam.” 

“ Ton are?” 

“That’s what I said.” 

John Haberly looked the rotund man over from 
head to foot, then walked a few steps forward and 


THE GANG DEFIED . 


53 


back, his hands in his pockets, his hat pushed up. 
He wanted to quench that egotism, but was too 
smooth a politician to needlessly anger any man on 
the eve of a convention. He thought he would 
try the fellows at the bar. 

“ Come up and have something, Saut,” he 
said. 

The saloon-keeper stood beside him, and each 
poured half a gill of liquor into a thick glass, 
swallowed it, drank some water to quench its fire, 
and then Haberly turned to the group of revelers. 
They were standing close together, talking very 
earnestly and rather noisily—about nothing. The 
bar-keeper took the price of two drinks from 
Haberly’s dollar, and gave him the change. 

“ Charley, what do you think of Ellet Grant’s 
chances for the nomination?” he asked of the man 
nearest him—Charley, the worker. 

This person was carpenter by theory, and a 
vote-procurer by practice. He had organized the 
“Tanners” in 1872; the “Flambeau Club” in 
1876, and the “Boys in Blue” in 1880. 

“Nomination for what?” asked Charley, 
blankly. The rest were listening. 

“Sheriff,” said Haberly. 

“What—him? For sheriff? That feller? Well 
I should say not.” And he resumed his story to 
the boys. 


54 


AN INDIANA MAN. 


“ Why not?” asked Haberly, calmly lighting a 
cigar. 

“ Why not? ’Cause there’s nothing in him. 
What’s he ever done for the party?” 

“Voted for it, every time.” 

u Voted! ” with withering contempt. “ Did he 
ever put up a dollar? Did he ever go with the 
boys? Naw—he’s too nice. He can’t get nothin’. 
This aint Mississippi.” 

Haberly blew a big cloud of smoke away up 
toward the ceiling, watched it a moment, and then 
said, without a change in his tone: 

“Have something with me, Charley. Boys, 
have something.” 

They all complied. Charley softened a little. 
He favored Haberly with his full front; he had 
been standing edgewise, and talking over his 
shoulder. 

“ Ellet’s a good man, John,” he conceded. But 
it was as if he had said: “Ellet is six feet tall;” 
or “Ellet has fair health.” 

Haberly nodded, removed his cigar, and blew 
up another billow of smoke to the ceiling. 

“Drives a dam elegant team,” Charley 
continued. He was becoming suave. He 
was in a receptive mood. Perhaps Haberly 
was commissioned to do something for the 
boys. 


THE GANG DEFIED. 


55 


“Pretty good team,” assented the politician. 
Then he gathered up his change, bowed to the 
group with the grace that had made him suc¬ 
cessful, and sauntered to the door. The proprietor 
followed him. 

“You see how it is, John,” said the latter, as if 
a finality had been reached. “No booze, no 
boost.” 

“ Sautern, you don’t know how strong Ellet is. 
The people think this is their year. Now, we 
have been making some mistakes the past few 
campaigns. Our clerk is an awful weak sister, 
and our surveyor has cost the tax-payers a heap 
of money on account of the errors in those ditch 
cases. The Democrats have been naming good 
men, and gaining a little every year since 1878. 
I honestly believe if we make bad nominations this 
year we will be beaten.” 

“ Cowan aint a bad nomination. And, if he 
was, I’m tired of this everlasting colic about the 
people. Damn the people ! I am in favor of 
nominating whoever the politicians want, and 
cramming the ticket down the throats of the peo¬ 
ple. Who are they, any way? A lot of old mud 
sills Who would like to drive all business except 
the churches out of town. The politicians have 
to put up for the party, run its machinery and 
elect its men. If they didn’t, nobody would be 


56 


AN INDIANA MAN . 


elected. They ought to have something to say 
about who should have the offices.” 

“Seems as if they do have something to say,” 
said Haberly, calmly, jingling his loose change, 
and looking down street. 

“You bet they have—and they are going to 
have more. The delegates will come up here un¬ 
instructed Monday, and I am going into that 
convention to down this saintly foolishness. 
Sober or drunk, solvent or broke, capable or not, 
I am for Cowan—and he’ll be nominated, too. 
Mark what I tell you.” 

“I have a great mind to teach you a lesson, 
Sautern. You are getting too big. What do you 
think the voters are?” 

“Yams!” shouted Sautern. “Yams—that’s 
what. You go ahead and teach me a lesson. 
Just go ahead and try it. I dare you, John. I 
dare you.” 

Haberly regarded the inflamed face and bloated 
figure before him in perfect calmness for a moment. 
Then he lifted his cigar to his lips, took a long 
pull, and shrouded the big man in smoke. 

“ I’ll just do it,” he said with energy, and walked 
away before Sautern came out of eclipse. 



CHAPTER VIII. 


ellet’s first humiliation. 

Haberly went down to Ringer’s, and found the 
Cowan sentiment even stronger there. Then he 
went to Steele’s. Cowan himself was there, 
although it was the smallest politics factory in 
town. The aspirant for sheriff’s honors was well 
dressed, was smoking a good cigar, and was 
entertaining a laughing group with a tremendously 
funny account of how a lot of Johnny Rebs acted 
when they saw the first Union army. The 
exquisite humor of his narrative was seasoned • 
not to say preserved—in alcohol; for wine, malt 
and spirituous liquors in quantities less than a 
quart, were being drunk on the premises, as the 
license directed, and all at his expense. 

“ Here’s John Haberly, gentlemen. Gentlemen, 
John Haberly—Colonel Haberly—a hero and a 
scholar. I believe he is also a good judge of 
liquor. John, what’ll you take?” 

“ Oh, a little rum and gum,” said John; by 
which the bar-keeper understood Mr. Haberly s 
palate would be satisfied only with a delicate mix- 


58 


AN INDIANA MAN. 


ture of spirits and sirup. “Here’s to everybody,” 
lie said, advancing his glass. 

“No, you don’t,” interposed one of the hench¬ 
men. “ ‘Here’s to Captain Jim Cowan for sheriff,’ 
that’s what you want to drink*here.” 

A moment’s pause served to fix all eyes on the 
manager. He looked around upon them quietly, 
then lifted his glass, and said: 

“Here’s to Captain Jim Cowan, the man who, 
in the hour of his nation’s peril, bared his arm and 
presented his body, a living bulwark against the 
advance of implacable foes. One, two, three, 
drink! ” And before any one could protest he had 
not endorsed the Captain’s candidacy, twenty 
chins were elevated, and twenty cups were 
drained. 

“Now one with me,” added Haberly; “and 
while Steele is filling your glasses, boys, I 
will sing you one verse of this year’s cam¬ 
paign song—only one verse; your lives shall 
be spared.” And without more ado he be¬ 
gan: ; 

“When the sneezers would seize on the knees of the Nation, 
And tumble and humble the whole population/ 

When Democrats charge on our sure nomination— 

Let heroes be found at the polls. 

When rebels and copperheads, secesh and traitors 
Are puffing themselves up with hot-air inflatory 
We’ll make them believe they are quite small potatoes— 

Lord! watch the Republicans roll.” 



ELLET’S FIRST HUMILIATION . 59 

Haberly had risen, advanced, swept the crowd 
with his address, and on the last line expended a 
force that would have honored heroic measures. 
It won the crowd. They cheered again and again. 
They laughed uproarously, and called for more. 
The men at the pool tables joined the party, and 
clustered about Haberly with effusive homage. 
Captain Jim struggled against the waves that 
were rising above him. He crowded forward, 
and beat upon the bar in noisy applause. But he 
met Steele’s discerning gaze, and read there the 
fear that John Haberly had spread in more than 
one campaign. He must dislodge this usurper. 

“Boys,” he shouted, and the words rose above the 
clamor, “drink this toast with me. ‘Here’s to’—” 

“No, you don’t,” interrupted Haberly. “We 
haven’t drank mine yet. I sang the song while 
Steele was fixing the liquor. Boys, drink deep.” 

He had won again, and he covered poor, crest¬ 
fallen Cowan with confusion by exclaiming, as he 
set down his glass: 

“I’m for Ellet Grant for sheriff. Some of you 
are for Jim Cowan. Both are good men. Let 
the convention choose between them, and every 
last man of us will stand by the nominee. In the 
meantime, let me ask one cheer for Ellet Grant, 
the honest farmer, and the young men’s candi¬ 
date!” 


60 AN INDIANA MAN. 

“Hip, hip, hurrah!” they all roared together. 

Cowan joined in the shout with the best possi¬ 
ble grace, and puzzled his maudlin brain for a 
way to capture the mastery. It was no use. Sau- 
tern’s defiance and his own inclination had led 
Haberly to a length he would not otherwise have 
attempted. He was no trifler in politics, and now 
that he was committed, Cowan saw a very wall 
of adamant against which he must dash himself. 
Besides, in this crowd was a number of men who 
easily remembered that Haberly was a good em¬ 
ployer in campaigns, and they had no special 
bonds of union to hold them to the Captain. Their 
principal doctrine was: “Small profits from one 
candidate, and quick returns to another.” 

“Boys,” pursued the manager, as the cheer sub¬ 
sided, and before .any one could deprive him of 
the floor, “boys, did I ever forget my friends?” 

“You never did,” shouted a dozen voices. 

“Then let me say no man ever had better 
friends than you have been to me—the whitest lot 
of fellows that ever wore hair.” He bowed with 
a wide, comprehending gesture, lifted his hat to 
them as gracefully as though they had been 
ladies, and left the place. 

“I’ll just try the gang at Ringer’s again,” he 
said. He went in, strolled through the room, and 
heard the general talk. There was something of 


ELLET'S FIRST HUMILIATION . 


61 


weather, something of current gossip, a little of 
business, and a great deal of politics. 

For in Indiana the male adult population is 
reckoned in voters—not in men. Presidential 
terms are olympiads, conventions are amphi¬ 
theatres, candidates are gladiators, and tickets are 
weapons. The perfection of rage is reserved for 
those occasions when opposing parties meet. No 
link is strong enough to bind together friends who 
worship at opposing shrines. No crime is so dark 
that party fealty may not atone, and no life so 
white that party treachery cannot steep it in slime 
beyond the cleansing power of life or death. 

Haberly saw two or three of the molders of 
opinion. They had pledged themselves to no 
man, but were willing to do what was for the 
best. They were strongly inclined, however, 
to indorse Cowan and his candidacy. Haberly’s 
keen eye saw that, under the cloak of impar¬ 
tiality, they all had their instructions. He drew 
one of the most faithful aside, and gave him 
a modest bill. 

“ Buy something for the boys,” he said. “ Dur¬ 
ing the evening you will hear lots about Cowan 
for sheriff. You get the fellows to figuring more 
on clerk. See who says a good word for Ellet 
Grant, and tell me to-morrow. You will lose 
nothing.” 


62 


AN INDIANA MAN. 


Then he bought a handful of cigars, divided 
them with his confidant, and went out. Sautern 
stood in his door as Haberly came up to untie his 
team. He was milder than when they last met. 

“ Still going to struggle, John? ” he asked. 

“I’m after you, Saut. I am, for a fact.” But 
the tone was less belligerent, was more hearty 
and full of good fellowship. The boss concluded 
a truce had followed close upon the heels of a war 
declaration. 

Haberly drove down street, past Sautern’s 
house, where the ladies were enjoying the late 
evening air. He managed to speak to his horses, 
so the women would know it was he. He went 
out of their sight in the direction of his home; 
but when right at his stable door, he reached 
for the whip, touched his trotters, and sped out 
of town as if fate hung on his expedition. 

Three miles from town a belated sewing 
machine agent, returning from a long drive, met 
him. His hat was turned down, his collar was 
turned up, his ready whip was hovering over his 
horses, and keeping them to diligent speed. At 
midnight he reached Wesley Grant’s farm. The 
watch dog declined to admit him to the yard, 
but consented to announce his arrival. For five 
minutes the violent barking of the dog was all 
the response he had elicited. But he was per- 


ELLET’S FIRST HUMILIATION. 


63 


sistent, and at length the front door opened, and 
Ellet Grant appeared. 

“Who’s there?” asked the young farmer from 
the threshold. 

“ Come here, Ellet,” said Haberly. 

“Oh, is it you? What’s up? Wait a minute.” 
He withdrew, and shortly came out more fully 
clothed. 

“Ellet,’’said the manager, “we must put up 
some money with the gang,oryou are beaten.” 

“Great guns ! John, I can’t do that. I don’t 
like that crowd, and I will not humor them. 1 
do not believe they are the people.” 

“ Look here. I went into Sautern’s to-night, 
and when I mentioned your name, they scored 
you. Sautern himself vows he will oppose you 
before the nomination, and knife you afterward. 
Cowan and his gang had taken Steele’s, and at 
Ringer’s it was the same. They have spread the 
idea that you are too lofty. Cowan has laid down 
$100. That does a great deal of good. If I am 
authorized to do the same for you, I can help you. 
If not, I tell you, honest, you are gone.” 

fillet struggled with the temptation. He did 
not want to be defeated. He was sure if they 
did not use corruption against him he was easily 
the party’s choice. But here they were depriving 
him of his rights, and his very conscientiousness 


64 


AN INDIANA MAN. 


was the thing that most weakened him. His friends 
and relatives in Franklin, in Monroe, in Liberty 
and in Star, had pledged him their support. He 
would go into town with a good majority of the 
delegates. But Cowan men would be all over 
the county to-morrow, working for hire, and 
making their arguments in cash. Should he 
allow the beggarly minority of votes that boaster 
would win in the country to be added to the 
purchased influence in town, and so defeat him¬ 
self? Had he not a right to checkmate such 
brazen infamy? If Cowan’s only hope were 
based on this swill-fed floating vote, was it wrong 
for him to smite that very vote with a blow just 
hard enough to eliminate it? The evils offset, 
would not matters be in natural state, and would 
he not then win fairly? 

“Think fast, Ellet,” said Haberly. “I must 
be in Fayette by 8 o’clock in the morning, and 
the horses must have a little sleep.” 

Ellet said never a word. He drew a wallet 
from his pocket, counted out a hundred dollars, 
handed them to Haberly, turned around and 
walked into the house—the most humiliated man 
in Indiana. 

The manager took the funds. “That’s right,” 
he said. “ Good-night, Ellet,” and he turned the 
trotters toward home. Right at the edge of town 


ELLET’S FIRST HUMILIATION. 65 

he stopped at Turner’s house and knocked at the 
'door. Turner lifted a window, and Haberly saw 
% gleam of light along the barrel of a gun. Here 
ivas a man who took no chances on visitors who 
called at 3 o’clock in the morning. 

“Hello, John,” he said quietly, putting the rifle 
away. “What do you want?” 

Haberly stepped down on the sod, and the two 
men put their faces together, one inside and just 
from his couch, the other without and just from a 
twenty mile drive. The latter laid a $10 
bill on the window ledge, and the former 
picked it up and folded it into his palm, not 
having any pocket in which it could be hid¬ 
den. 

“ Sautern is going to have that up-town gang 
chosen to-day as delegates to the county conven¬ 
tion. He will have you read the names in a mass, 
and whatever you read will go through like a 
bullet in butter. Now, I want you to go to Saut 
in the morning before 9 o’clock, and tell him I 
want three of that same gang chosen. You tell 
him it looks suspicious; you are afraid I have 
fixed them. Then you get him to put Forden, 
Himes, Bill Brown and Gurnsey on the list. He 
will do it if he thinks I want the other fellows, 
for he thinks Forden and Brown are all right, any 
way. Then you go ahead just as he wants you 


AN INDIANA MAN. 


to after that, and elect your list of delegates. 
Do you understand?” 

“ 1 guess so,” said Turner. “ You want Grant 
men, don’t you? ” 

“ That’s it.” 

“ 1 saw you talking to Gurnsey last night in at 
Ringer’s. He seemed to be for Ellet after you 
went out, and that’s what made me think so.” 

“Well, good-night, Turner.” 

“Good-night, John.” 

And the window slid slowly down on one of 
the faithful. 



CHAPTER IX. 


THE COUNTY CONVENTION. 

Affairs in town assumed a different aspect. 
The gang at Steele’s was undoubtedly a Grant 
gang. Ringer’s guests were cold to Cowan, and 
even at Sautern’s the boss was kept very busy to 
maintain the semblance of an unbroken line. Out¬ 
side the saloons money did not do much good; but 
talking did. Dodd, the candidate for clerk, was 
an undoubted good man. He was better qualified 
and better liked than any man who had asked for 
that office. He lived in town. Now, should 
they jeopardize his chances by supporting Cowan, 
also from town? Would they not better favor 
Ellet Grant, and so win enough strength in the 
country to help them float in the rest of the ticket? 
The Democrats were going to name a strong man 
for county attorney; they were all decided on the 
matter, His opponent must necessarily come 
from town, as there were no lawyers in the coun¬ 
try. Now, three candidates from town would be 
too much for the country voter, proverbially 
jealous on the question of geography in politics. 


AN INDIANA MAN . 


How could Haberly have touched all these 
springs? How could he manage to dispense with 
sleep for days and nights together? How could 
he be in Monroe township at sundown Saturday; 
at the county seat, twelve miles away, all the 
evening; at Jotham New’s, fifteen miles distant, in 
time for church Sunday morning; in Liberty at 
dark, and then eat breakfast in Star, ten miles 
south? How could the very words into which he 
put his arguments reappear in every group of 
freemen, and prevail from morning till night? 

On Monday, the day fixed for the county con¬ 
vention, Fair view was a very busy town. It was 
full of candidates, and delegates, and workers, and 
pullers, from dawn till long past midnight. They 
all had money, and they all spent it. A dollar 
was worth less that day than it ever would be 
again till election. No one was financially embar¬ 
rassed. Depleted exchequers had been filled as if 
by fiat, and men who had owed meat bills for 
months smoked more costly cigars than the 
butcher could buy. 

Yet merchants did not do much business. It 
was a man crowd—not a woman crowd; dry 
goods languished. It was a drinking crowd—not 
an eating crowd; groceries were a drug on the 
market. It was a talking crowd—not a working 
crowd; very little hardware was sold. But it took 


THE COUNTY CONVENTION. 


69 


three men to serve the patrons at Sautern’s, and 
three at Ringer’s, and three at Steele’s—and all 
nine were wearier than the muses when Greece 
was greatest. 

The court-room had been crowded for an hour. 
The chairman of the County Central Committee 
called the convention to order, and officers were 
elected. A few speeches had been made by the 
orators of the party. It was observed that old 
Wesley Grant was a delegate from Greene town¬ 
ship. Sautern was not a delegate, but he sat 
behind Mr. Turner, who was. He sat where he 
could watch Charley, the worker, and Forden, and 
Himes, and Bill Brown, and Gurnsey. He 
chuckled when he thought how he had outwitted 
John Haberly. 

“ He was going to teach me a lesson,” muttered 
the saloon keeper. “He would just about have 
done it, too, if Turner hadn’t come to me Satur¬ 
day morning, and had me knock off them fellers 
from the north end of town. I thought sure they 
was all right till Turner told me Haberly wanted 
them. I wonder how much he paid them. Well, 
he don’t use them in this convention—in some 
other convention, mebby.” 

Then he launched his first shaft. 

“Mr. President,” said Mr. Turner, rising to 
prove his loyalty to Sautern, “ I move that the 


70 


AN INDIANA MAN. 


delegates here assembled do now pledge themselves 
to support without exception, and to the best of 
their ability, "every candidate who may be nomi¬ 
nated here to-day.” 

He sat down, and two or three men seconded 
the motion in a perfunctory sort of way. There 
are a good many men who, in a meeting, would 
second a motion to decapitate each member of 
the assembly, beginning at once. 

Old Wesley Grant got the eye of the chair, and 
rose to oppose the motion. 

“ Who ever heard of delegates pledging them¬ 
selves? ” he asked, smiling, for he knew his point 
was well taken. “Candidates sometimes pledge 
themselves. This convention will be the first ever 
heard of where the delegates did such a thing.” 

“We will start the fashion, then,” retorted 
Turner. Any one would have said he retorted 
savagely. 

The chairman proceeded to put the motion^ 
but old Wesley opposed it for another reason. 

“ I am opposed, then, on general grounds, and 
should like an opportunity to tell why.” 

“ Mr. President,” shouted Mr. Turner, while a 
hub-hub was rising all over the room, “I object. 
No matter what may cause the gentleman’s oppo¬ 
sition. No matter what are his reasons. It will 
do no good to air our grievances here. Let the 


THE COUNTY CONVENTION. 


71 


majority rule, and let wisdom guide our councils. 

a Mr. Grant has the floor,” said the chairman, 
whose ideas of parliamentary rule were that this 
motion was open to debate. 

“ I oppose the motion, and want the delegates 
here to know the reason why.” 

a I object to knowing the reason why, Mr. 
Chairman,” interposed Bill Brown, from another 
part of the house. “ Let him agree to abide the 
will of the convention, or withdraw now.” 

The chair had a revelation from the direction of 
Sam Sautern. 

« The chair sustains the objection. The motion 
has carried, and Mr. Grant must either abide the 
action of the party delegates, or withdraw and give 
way to some other man who will.” 

“Then I withdraw now,” said the old man, 
sturdily. “ I am not going to indorse in advance 
all the foolishness you may be guilty of here 
to-day.” 

Greene township called Mr. Grant’s alternate 

into the vacancy, and the business of the convention 

proceeded. Wesley sat down outside the close 
reserved for delegates. Sautern turned upon him 
a look of triumph, which was met with the calm 
gaze of a man who could wait. Lawyer Poole 
got up and came over to the farmer. Himseh a 
candidate for re-election to the office of prosecutor, 


72 


AN INDIANA MAN. 


he believed all his hopes hinged on the nod and 
beck of Sautern. He had received his commands, 
and proceeded to obey them. 

“ You see we have got you down, Wesley,” he 
said. “ It won’t do for anyone to cut Sautern and 
these fellows. He can beat Ellet for sheriff. 
This little incident ought to prove that to you. 
Do you want to see the boy beaten? ” 

“No.” 

“ Then will you come down with a hundred, to 
be used by his friends? ” 

“ I will not.” 

“He will be beaten.” 

“ Let him.” 

Poole sat there a while longer, Watching the 
convention, but wondering how this castle was to 
be reduced. Presently he put his lips near the 
old man’s face, and said : 

“Wesley, I want to see Ellet nominated.” Spite 
of his thralldom to the ring, this was very true, as 
it increased his own chances, by reducing the num. 
ber of candidates in town. “You ought to be 
willing to do something for your son. Everybody 
does it. Don’t see the boy slaughtered here 
to-day. It will ruin him.” 

“I will not give one dollar for corruption.” 

“Will you lend Steele a hundred to-day? He 
needs it, and he is good.” 


THE COUNTY CONVENTION. 73 

“Oh, no, Poole. That is the same thing. I 
won’t do it.” 

“Will you go on Ringer’s license bond? His 
year is about up, and a little service like that will 
not hurt you any, and it will make both you and 
Ellet lots of friends.” 

The old man waited a moment, and then said 
“ No,” with great decision. Clearly, he had not 
weakened. Poole returned to his seat on the 
farther side of the house. Charley, the worker, 
the organizer of campaign clubs, glided through 
the crowd from his seat near Ellet Grant, and 
put his frowsy head between Sautern and Turner. 
After a moment he stood up straight, as one who 
had saved his country. Then he moved over to 
Wesley Grant. It seemed that a message had 
come to father from son through a very devious 
channel. The sturdy old farmer sat quite still 
while Charley poured a flood of argument, stained 
with unsavory odors, before him. But he de¬ 
clined to soften, even to the persuasive eloquence 
of the hustler. 

Sims, the committee man, was on his feet. He 
moved that they proceed with the nomina¬ 
tions in the following ordei. Sneriff, clerk, 
prosecutor, and recorder. Bill Brown seconded 
the motion, but one of the Dodd delegates 
opposed it. 


74 


AN INDIANA MAN. 


“ I am in favor of following the order observed 
in the committee’s call for a convention—clerk, 
sheriff, prosecutor and recorder.” And the ma¬ 
jority seemed to be with him. Their success 
meant the nomination of Dodd for clerk. He 
being from town would lessen Cowan’s chances, 
for some of the nominees must come from the 
country. Sautern could not use Poole in this 
matter, for Poole was in favor of the movement. 
The chairman had risen, and was stating the 
motion. Sautern caught Charley’s eye, and shook 
his head vigorously. The organizer understood, 
and was on his feet in a moment. 

“Mr. Chairman, and gentlemen,” he said, with 
great vigor, and with that assumption of virtue 
surprised which always attracts attention. “ The 
motion is to adopt the order suggested by our 
honorable committeeman, and a good many gentle¬ 
men seem inclined to oppose it, and to favor the 
order adopted in the call. I am inclined to be 
guided in this matter by the will and the judg¬ 
ment of the honorable gentlemen who are charged 
with the duty of managing the party’s affairs, 
and if the honorable gentlemen representing the 
political conduct of the campaign in this matter 
think it is better for any reason to pursue a 
certain order, I am the last man in the county to 
oppose them. But we must not do things here as 


the county convention. 


75 


they do in the South. What we want here is 
harmony—harmony in the convention, harmony 
on the street, and harmony at the polls. To 
secure harmony we must be guided in a certain 
degree by the wisdom of the honorable gentle¬ 
men who give their time and attention to the 
conduct of our political affairs. This is not 
Mississippi, nor yet Florida, and we must in a 
certain measure be guided by the counsels of the 
honorable gentlemen—” 

And so on for the four or five minutes required 
to notify the whippers-in from the various town¬ 
ships that the motion must be carried. An un¬ 
common rustling around had been indulged, but 
the chairman presently received permission to 
proceed. 

Other delegates broke from restraint, and 
opposed the motion. It was with difficulty the 
debate could be stopped. The men did not take 
kindly to gagging. Somehow, Sautern felt a 
breeze of mutiny in the room. To his astonish¬ 
ment, the motion was undoubtedly lost, in the 
viva voce vote. 

“I demand a rising vote,” shouted Charley, 
who knew the advantage of that method. Many 
a delegate was willing to sit still and shout No 
when ordered to shout “ Aye,” and yet object 
seriously to standing up and letting Sautern s eye 


76 


AN INDIANA MAN. 


range over the room, marking culprits for future 
punishment. The boss nodded his head in ap¬ 
proval at the worker. 

“All in favor of the motion will rise to their 
feet,” said the chairman, and every man the 
machine could summon stood up in an instant, 
visibly lifting up his neighbors. 

“All opposed,” said the chairman, when the 
affirmative vote was counted. The motion was 
lost. 

“I move,” said the Dodd delegate, before 
Sautern’s men could rally, “ that we proceed to 
the nomination in the order published in the 
committee’s call—clerk, sheriff, prosecutor and 
recorder.” 

A score of seconds showed the tide was flow¬ 
ing now, and in the least possible time a favorable 
vote was recorded. Cowan was intensely angry, 
but he still hoped he might throw his strength 
to Baker, an out-of-town candidate for clerk, and 
so defeat Dodd. Sautern’s emissaries were busy. 

“We’ll help nominate Baker for clerk, if you 
will help nominate Cowan for sheriff,” they said, 
and in the confusion which preceded the taking 
of a vote it seemed the trade was arranged. But 
surely the convention was tired of dictation. It 
was slipping out of the hands that had so often 
guided it. While the delegates were willing to 



THE COUNTY CONVENTION. 


77 


be bound by the general action, they themselves 
wanted to say what that action should be. They 
did not approve the rude manner in which sturdy, 
honest old Wesley Grant had been expelled. It 
was enough for some of them to know that the 
same influence that had ousted him now de¬ 
manded Dodd’s extinction; and they were minded 
to oppose it. 

The feeling for Baker did not amount to a 
preference, and so when the first ballot had been 
counted it was found that Dodd had more votes than 
any other one man, though not enough to nomi¬ 
nate him. The third aspirant was dropped, and 
a new ballot was prepared. Again the effort to 
nominate Baker was made, but it failed, for the 
result showed Dodd the choice of the convention 
by a good majority. 

The machine had sustained a defeat. Sautern 
could not understand it. What was the matter 
with those delegates? Who was controlling 
them? Had John Haberly made good his threat 
to teach him a lesson? Was this the lesson he 
intended teaching? Why, the man was not even 
in the room. 

The struggle for sheriff followed, and was 
spirited, indeed. When Ellet Grant was placed 
in nomination there was no mistaking the enthusi¬ 
asm. He was an undoubted favorite. Captain 


78 


AN INDIANA MAN. 


James Cowan, the Honorable James Cowan, Jim 
Cowan, the people’s friend, and plain Mr. Cowan 
were some of the designations applied to the second 
nominee. Two others followed, but on the second 
ballot one was dropped; while Grant led Cowan 
by five votes. Where would the last man’s 
strength go? If to Cowan, then Grant would be 
beaten. If to Grant, then Cowan was done for. 
The machine revolved with amazing swiftness, 
but encountered again that chilling resistance. 
Even the delegates who owed allegiance to Ringer 
and Steele declined to be directed. 

And on the third ballot, Ellet had a clear 
majority over all. The cheers that greeted him 
were gall and wormwood to the fat man who sat 
behind impassive Mr. Turner. He stole one 
glance at old Wesley Grant, and saw a face calm 
and unmoved in the general rejoicing. He fairly 
raved to think how, as a matter of course, that 
old man took triumph. He could stay to see no 
more. It was positively maddening. Let them 
run their convention. He would show them yet. 
And he snatched his hat and bolted from the 
court-house—blind, deaf and dumb with anger. 


CHAPTER X. 


A POPULAR CANDIDATE. 

Reaching his saloon, Sautern first refreshed his 
spirits, and then poured out the vials of his wrath 
—at long range—on the victors. He would show 
them. Let no man of the whole outfit come into 
his place again, nor ever ask a favor. He half 
believed even Turner, and Bill Brown, and 
Gurnsey, and Forden, and Himes had been untrue 
to him. 

“ I am for Frank Logan for sheriff from here 
on,” he shouted. “If you Democrats want an 
office in Fairview, now is your time.” 

But he had not yet reached the depths. When 
the convention adjourned, he learned that Poole 
had been defeated. He could have borne that, 
for Poole secretly favored Ellet Grant’s nomination; 
but he was defeated by a temperance lawyer from 
Hamlet, the second town in the county—Ezra 
Fuller, fresh from college, fresh from home, fresh 
from all those influences which were Sautern’s 
special abhorrence. 

«PU beat the whole ticket,” he vowed, as he 
paced the length of his rooms, arid made all his 

79 


80 


AN INDIANA MAN. 


patrons uncomfortable. “And I’ll do more. I 
know every man who stood up there and was 
counted agin Sims’ motion to change the order of 
nominating. I’ll lay for every man of them. 
They’ll hear from me, and hear often.” 

Right in the midst of his passion the screen 
door opened, and John Haberly led Ellet Grant 
into the room. Haberly’s whole bearing was that 
of a man who had never heard news, either good 
or bad; a man who had never hated, and had 
never loved; a man who had no interest on earth 
or elsewhere which could provoke either a smile 
or a sigh. 

Ellet was less composed. He had fought a 
hard fight, and had won a good victory. Still, 
he was not unduly exultant. He was, indeed, 
rather nervous. He wanted to appear strong, yet 
indulgent; to tower a little above, yet stoop to 
some affiliation. And at the same time Ellet 
Grant both felt and acted out of place in a saloon. 

“Well, Sautern,” said Haberly, calmly, “we 
came in to congratulate you.” 

“You did?” with intense downward inflection. 

“Yes. Let us have a cigar.” 

“Man there to wait on you.” Was he to be 
softened by any twenty-five cent purchase? 

“How do you like the ticket?” Before any 
reply could come Haberly continued: “This is 


A POPULAR CANDIDATE . 


81 


Ellet Grant, the nominee for sheriff. I don’t think 
you two are acquainted, and you ought to be. Mr. 
Grant is a devilish good man.” Then to Ellet: 
“ Mr. Sautern is one of the wheel horses in the 
county, and a gentleman we all have found to be 
very agreeable.” 

Sautern did not at all enjoy the situation. He 
shook hands, but he did not want to. He 
acknowledged the introduction, but it would have 
been so much more to his liking to kick this 
precious pair clear through the transom, and across 
the street. 

But while he stood before them, letting Haberly 
manage the conversation, Sautern concluded to 
accept this overture in a friendly spirit, and make 
it the first of many visits to his place. How 
richer than feasts for hungry men would be the 
treading on Ellet Grant now! How sweeter than 
honey to the tongue would be each sigh he could 
wring from old Wesley! How rarer than victory 
might he not make this defeat! So he unbent a 
little, jested as a beaten man may, hoped Ellet 
would treasure up no resentment, and, in the 
rising tide of fellowship, led them to the bar. 

“Jap, wait on the gentlemen,” he said to his 
chief assistant; and Jap, with linen a little stained, 
and face a little flushed by the work of the day, 
posed as a model of respectful attention. 


82 


AN INDIANA MAN. 


He knew what this meant. He had tended bar 
since he was fifteen, and knew more about whisky 
than the men who made it, because he saw more 
. of its operation. Jap had a theory that men and 
whisky were both good enough when in separate 
packages. “It’s when they mix that trouble 
comes,” he would say. He divided all bar-invok¬ 
ing politicians into three classes: “When they 
first get here, they own Sautern; when half way 
through the term, it’s a stand-off; when they go 
out of office, Sautern owns them.” 

Yet it was not for him to warn this man. It 
was not for him to say that a street paved with 
dynamite were safer than this broad road. So he 
rested his hands on the bar, bent his keen eyes 
and intelligent face toward them, caught Ellet’s 
diffident, muttered, protesting, “Whisky, please;” 
read John Haberly’s order for “the same” in a 
familiar nod, and then served them with the grace 
and deference of a courtier. 

Down the bar was a crowd of drinkers. Most 
of them were commodities yesterday; all were 
gratuities now. For months their only value 
would be that of possible future use. Yet they 
must be preserved from any chance of defection. 
They flocked around Ellet Grant, and showered 
congratulations upon him. He was always their 
choice, and if it hadn’t been for them, he might 


A POPULAR CANDIDATE. 


83 


have been beaten. He was the whitest man that 
ever lived. That old Jim Cowan—who wanted 
him ? 

Ellet treated the last man of them, and then, 
growing in dignity as the liquor rose to his brain, 
patronized Sautern a little; praised John Haberly; 
assured them that he was all right-—every day in 
the week, and then—treated again, drinking with 
them. 

“Well, Saut, we must go,” said Haberly. 

“We must go, gentlemen,” said Grant. “ I am 
glad to meet my friends, and you are all my 
friends, and I am a friend to all of you. I’m all 
right every day in the week—every day in the 
week. Good-bye, Mr. Sautern. I’m glad to have 
met you. I’ll see you again.” 

Haberly saw how it was going. 

“We must call on Ringer and Steele, Ellet,” 
he said. “ The boys there will want you to come. 
Between you and me, Ringer and Steele helped 
you to the nomination. They coppered every 
move Sautern made. Let’s take a little walk 
before we go in.” 

It would not do for this man, whose tongue was 
already loose, whose wit was already light with 
intoxicants, to go straight to other potations. 
So they went to the mill, and shrewd Haberly 
bought some flour and horse feed. Then they 


84 


AN INDIANA MAN. 


came back up town, prolonging the triumphal 
progress as far as possible, till Ringer’s place was 
reached. 

The candidate was introduced to Ringer and 
his bartenders, and to the men who lined the 
drinking trough. 

“ You’re a lucky man, Mr. Grant,” said the 
unpolished Mr. Ringer. 

“ So are we lucky men—to get so good a can¬ 
didate,” rejoined Haberly. 

“That’s so; that’s so,” assented the proprietor. 
“Best ticket ever was named in Fairview County. 
Nobody couldn’t beat it. You’ve got plain sailing, 
Mr. Grant.” 

“With the continued favor of my friends, I 
think I have,” said Ellet, whereat John Haberly’s 
eyes glistened. It was a graceful, a politic thing 
to say. 

“ Gentlemen,” resumed Ellet, “what’ll you have? 
Give me some of the same—I mean a little whisky. 
Some men don’t know his friends when they see 
him—I mean some people are down on me because 
I am down on you—I mean some people are down 
on me. But I’m all right every day in the week 
—every day in the week.” This with great im¬ 
pressiveness. He wished them to understand 
he was entirely friendly, no matter what other 
persons had said about him. 


A POPULAR CANDIDATE . 


85 


They all drank. They didn’t know what a fine 
fellow Ellet Grant was. His good clothes, his 
better bearing, his known wealth—all these made 
him a friend to cultivate. Add, then, his newly 
discovered convivial character, and he was a thing 
to awake enthusiasm. u The boys ” were for him. 

Haberly managed to escape from Ringer’s with 
only one drink, and then he proposed another 
walk, this time to the foundry, at the farther end 
of town. He went in and made a pretense of 
transacting some business, leaving his protege at 
the door. Ellet stood there, steadying himself 
against the bench, and trying to read the scrawled 
records on the wall. 

“First snow, Nov. I, 1878. 

“ First snow, Oct. 24, 1879. 

“ First snow, Oct. 2, 1880.” 

Evidently the world was getting colder. 

Presently Haberly led him away, and they 
stopped at Steele’s. When they emerged Ellet 
needed a bridle on his lips as he had never before 
needed one. 

But “the boys” were all solid. That was the 
one desideratum. 

At sundown he climbed into the buggy beside 
his father, and drove home. At the very start he 
noticed, thick as were his senses, that Wesley 
Grant was silent. 


86 


AN INDIANA MAN. 


“Meanest thing I ever saw, father,” he said; 
“putting you out of the convention. But it didn’t 
do ’em any good. We beat ’em. We beat the 
whole outfit; and we can do it again, any day in 
the week—any day in the week. They were 
down on you because you beat Beal two years 
ago. But they didn’t dare say a word against 
you in my hearing. No, not a man of ’em didn’t. 
I’d have choked the first one that dared say a 
word. I’d stand by my father every day in the 
week.” 

Why, what load is that on Wesley Grant's old 
heart? What fury is it that looms before, and 
throws a shadow over him? What fate is this 
that whets a knife in his hearing? How keener 
his agony as he reaches home; how he shuns their 
eyes that watch his coming from the porch; how 
with unused cunning he turns his son into the barn! 

“ Ellet, let’s wash before we go to the house,” 
he says. “Your face looks as if you had been 
threshing, and mine feels as if I had been threshed.” 

He pumps a great pail of water, and Ellet, saner 
now for the long ride, plunges in his hands, and 
laves his face, his neck, his head, with the grateful 
liquid; then puts his hand across the spout, and 
drinks a huge draught. He rises refreshed, and 
dries his hands on the linen lap-robe. He notes 
with pain his father has not washed. 


A POPULAR CANDIDATE. 


87 


“He didn’t need it,” muses the young man. 

“Cattle all fed?” asks the farmer of his man. 
“ Better keep the horses up to-night; it looks like 
rain. Ellet, you run the buggy in the shed, and 
help Jim off with the wagon box. He will want 
to haul rails from the middle fence to-morrow, if 
the weather lets him.” 

And so, with commonplace commands and well- 
used habit he smooths the way to the family. But 
when his wife first meets him, her eyes are full- 
are blazing—with one question. He cannot 
answer it, yet in that inability her sinking heart 
reads all the truth. 

What is it to father and mother that Ellet will 
be sheriff of Fairview County? Ellet has come 
home steeped in liquor. That would pall any 
glory. 

The girls do not read the truth so darkly. To 
them, the victory is a victory. The misstep is 
quite apart from that. The facts do not need to 
dwell together. Esther is jubilant, and wants to 
know all about it. Yet she cannot understand 
when he tells her, and flies from details to general 
result. Ellet says good words for Haberly, and 
does not see that this is music to her ears. He 
would have lost only for Haberly. That man is 
a genius, a trump, a—a—a—words fail to dignify 
him. Esther vows another feast to the deity of 


88 


AN INDIANA MAN. 


conventions, and Alice runs to the piano, and pours 
her pleasure over the yielding keys. 

Ellet is weary. He has been up till midnight 
and later every day for weeks. He had ridden at 
all hours, and slept in all places. He will go to 
bed. So, after the lightest of suppers, he leaves 
them, and is instantly lost in the utter exhaustion 
that follows excess. 


CHAPTER XI. 


A SUNDAY AT THE FARM. 

Pretty Lake Church was the pride of the neigh¬ 
borhood. At its sacred desk services had been 
held every Sunday afternoon for many years. 
The rich farms all around it produced the maxi¬ 
mum of a wide range of crops; but the spirit of 
peace, order and sobriety was the rarest yield. 
This found its expression in a sort of fraternity 
that bound all the farmers together in bonds that 
only come with time and modest prosperity; in 
the courtesy that each one extended to the others, 
and in the gentle emulation which made comely 
appearance and decorous behavior the characteris¬ 
tics of Pretty Lake people. The preacher to 
whom they listened once a week lived on the 
shores of the lake, worked a little in his vineyard 
every day, and preached the truth undefiled, 
without either cursing Dives or canonizing Laza¬ 
rus. A very modest theology was good enough 
for simple men, and beyond the staunch old tenets 
of entrance by faith and tenure by works, he sel¬ 
dom led his people. 


90 


AN INDIANA MAN. 


His hands had once been supple and strong; 
they were weak and trembling now. His hair 
had once been as dark as night; it was white now. 
He had lifted the children of his flock to their 
christenings years ago; had spread his palms in 
blessing above them when they were married, and 
now rested content in the fellowship of those who 
had known him forty years, and loved him all the 
time. 

Ellet Grant with his sisters had attended morn¬ 
ing service in town these later years, but had 
never for one day deserted the homelier sanctuary 
by the lake. They were under no compulsion 
but that of love, and it was always strong enough 
to place them side by side with those who had 
known their lives, and to keep them there, 
honored, and honoring all with whom they 
mingled. 

John Haberly drove out the Sunday afternoon 
following the convention. He was clad in the 
best of clothes, and was not unworthily proud of 
his team and carriage. One of his sisters accom¬ 
panied him, and they two went home with Wesley 
Grant’s family for dinner. 

Oh, the farm-house meal of Sunday afternoon! 
What genius helps to make it? What pleasures 
for epicures are here! Who taught the aged 
hands of mother and the gentle hands of daugh- 


A SUNDAY AT THE FARM. 


91 


ters to concoct its sweets? What fairy of the 
hours tossed it to completion so quickly? What 
gods of grace and beauty instructed its arrange¬ 
ment, and made that table fit banquet place for 
kings ? Poultry grown plethoric in the abundance 
of waste, fried to a turn and crisping in crumbs; 
potatoes as smooth and as savory as ices; bread 
that rivals the pastry of towns; butter so sweet, 
cream so rich, milk so refreshing that gardens of 
Eden could not have excelled! Then the honey, 
fragrant with all the blossoming sweets of forest 
and field; the fruit that was gathered in season; 
the pies and the cake—those classics of a cook’s 
senior year! And the brimming abundance of it 
all. Let no man think he has lived till he pass that 
flood-mark of life—the farm-house Sunday dinner 

When sated feasters had drawn back, Ellet 
and John Haberly went with Wesley Grant to the 
broad porch, while the women gave that rare 
time just after dinner to social service. An hour 
later, the whole great house tidy from garret to 
cellar, they joined the men, talking and watching 
the shadows drift eastward. 

“ Did you ever take a Sunday evening walk in 
the woods?” asked Ellet of his friend. Habersy 
never had, and confessed a strong desire to do so. 

“Will you go with us, father?” asked Esther, 
pinning on her hat. 


92 


AN INDIANA MAN. 


“ No, mother and I will take our walk later.’’ 

Down the broad lane, between the fields where 
busy nature was building for future harvests; 
through the woods where soil and stones had lain 
unturned for ages, not troubled by the hungry 
haste of man; past lady ferns, rank and beautiful; 
by sweet briars that filled the aisles of the forest 
with perfume; over a carpet of yielding moss and 
violets, to the edge of the wintergreen patch. 
Just over there, where the spongy ground forbade 
their footsteps, acres of whortleberries hung ripe 
in the hot air. Beyond them, hiding their rubies 
in the tangled vines, were store of cranberries, 
waiting the chill of winter, when they might 
sharpen thankfulness. Above the group of young 
people spread the branches of oak trees, lifting 
good broad leaves as the royal winds approached 
them, lowering in musical obeisance as the breeze 
passed by. 

Esther and John Haberly were a little wav 
from the others. 

“Tell me about the convention,” she said. 
“Ellet thinks you managed everything.” 

There isn’t much to tell. The chairman 
hammered on the desk at io o’clock, and read 
the call of the County Central Committee—” 

“Oh, I don’t mean that. One can read all 
that in the Republican. How did you get him 


A SUNDAY AT THE FARM. 


93 


the nomination, when what you call the machine 
was against you?” 

“Well, the machine isn’t supposed to be either 
for or against any one until after the convention. 
Then it is for the nominee, and against every one 
else.” 

“ But Mr. Sautern said he would beat Ellet, 
didn’t he?” 

“ Not Mr. Sautern, Esther,” with emphasis on 
the title. “Sautern—just plain, simple Sautern, 
the saloon keeper—did swear that he would oppose 
Ellet, and that no man could get the nomination 
who did not first see him and fix things up.” 

“ Then how did you succeed? ” 

“I don’t think you want to know.” 

“ But I do—very much. The man’s insolence 
was so unbearable.” 

“Well, to tell you the truth, I beat him with 
his own weapons. I know more people, and have 
more friends than he has. It took some money 
and some night riding, but the very men he 
depended on were the very ones I used.” 

“It took some money—how?” 

“ Well, there are lots of fellows who care only 
one thing for politics. If they can get enough to 
drink and smoke out of it, they are satisfied. 
They live in all communities, and they fairly flock 
in towns. They belong to all parties, and are 


94 


AN INDIANA MAN. 


easiest controlled by the saloons. The candidate 
who has them solid can be nominated and even 
elected against any man.” 

But you are not a saloon keeper, and Sautern, 
as you call him, is. How did you manage to use 
his own forces?” 

“By getting the gangs of other saloons to 
oppose the gang in his saloon. Usually they all 
go together, but this time I got them divided. 
All the mischief that Sautern did was checkmated 
by the cussedness of some other fellow; so the 
whole fight was left, finally, for decent men to 
settle. More decent men supported Ellet than 
any other candidate, and so he was chosen.'* 

“Divide and conquer,” mused Esther. But she 
was not thinking of that. She was trying to 
reconcile herself to what seemed very wrong. A 
moment later she said: “But it took money, and 
a use of the saloons.” 

“Only to the extent Isay. I let one saloon 
counteract another saloon, and then the people 
settled the matter as they wanted it. If I had not 
done so, Sautern would have beaten a good man 
simply because he was good.” 

She pondered that awhile, and then she said: 

“ I am glad you did it. I am very glad you did it.” 

“So am I,” was the response, and in the three 
words was bound up no little of self gratulation. 


A SUNDAY AT THE FARM. 


95 


She saw this, recognized his claim upon her, and 
tried to thank him in words—but words were so 
empty. He looked in her eyes, bright with her 
praises, and found more payment than volumes 
could have held. 

They all strolled back to the house, the girls 
with trailing grasses and scimeter blades of giant 
ferns; with a wealth of wood flowers, and the 
scent of unturned earth upon them. The sun was 
low, and Wesley Grant and his wife were com¬ 
pleting their weekly tour. The young people 
gained the house first, and filled the listening 
rooms with happy music. An hour passed, and 
the cord that tethered Esther’s heart to Haberly 
was strengthened. His chief distinction in the 
county had been won by methods decidedly shady, 
yet one forgot all the bad one heard of him when 
he stood so easily before the world, and asked no 
favors. His presence was marked by a certain 
polish, his bearing was always calm and collected, 
and his simplest actions were so plainly those of a 
man who never struggled, yet always won. 

He was a hero to her; and yet, in confessing 
that, she hushed a conscience-uttered protest, and 
hurried the rising tide of feeling that rolled about 
his image in her memory. She must be kind to 
him. Had he not helped her brother? 


CHAPTER XII. 


THE RALLY. 

The weeks that followed were full enough of 
work at the farm, and politics was allowed to 
drift without special guidance until in August, 
when Ellet took the side-bar buggy, and started 
on his tour about the county. National, State and 
local issues were to be decided. Meetings were 
held almost nightly in some of the townships, and 
at many of these Ellet was present. He was no 
speaker, but his simple directness when called 
upon to address the voters had a good effect. 

“ They think you are a sort of ideal candidate,” 
John Haberly had said. 

“ I hope at the end of my service they will say 
I have been an ideal sheriff,” responded the young 
man, and Haberly, who was much in demand at 
meetings, repeated the sentiment when he came 
to extol his friend. It was a good thing to say. 

The Republicans had a grand rally in Fair- 
view at the end of August, and all the candidates 
regarded it as sunshine in which they were wise 
to make hay. Great, flaring posters stood dis- 


96 


THE RALLY. 


97 


played at every point of vantage in the county. 
The Republican had filled its columns for weeks 
with laudatory lines for the principal speakers. A 
great booth h^d been erected in the court-house 
square, and a wide space in front was occupied 
with rough seats, in the shade of those trees 
which were the chief glory of the county town. 

The candidate for governor was himself to 
address the people, and in the earliest morning 
hours the place took on the airs of preparation. 
Flags were flying; bunting fluttered from the 
awnings; lithograph portraits of the leaders were 
on view. The streets were clean. Boxes and 
barrels were arranged in order ; merchandise was 
dusted and heaped ready to hand; men wore 
better clothes than on common days. 

At 9 o’clock the “ grand marshal ” rode down 
the street, at the head of a number of aides; each 
wore a sash about his waist, and a cockade in his 
hat. All were emulous of military grandeur, 
though none appeared majestic. The delegation 
from Fayette township was first to arrive, and 
the commandant sent an order to halt it at the 
edge of town until others should come. By io 
o’clock all were ready, and then the grand parade 
began. 

The cornet band marched bravely down the 
street, blatant with martial airs. Behind it came 


98 


AN INDIANA MAN. 


the county magnates, with the “ Governor ” in a 
carriage. For in Indiana a candidate for guber¬ 
natorial honors is dignified with his coveted title 
long before election. It would be treason, disloy¬ 
alty, an expression of doubt, to do otherwise. 
Distinguished guests from neighboring towns 
occupied other carriages, and then came the 
masterpiece of the day. A mammoth Ship of 
State had been launched on the weaves of partisan 
enthusiasm, and rigged with partisan mottoes. It 
was guided by a Jehu who would have disdained 
recognition from his fellows of yesterday unless 
they subscribed to his partisan, views; and from 
stem to stern the craft was guiltless of any work¬ 
manship save that of partisans. 

But it was not its hull or rigging, its spars or 
its motive power which glorified the Ship of State. 
The passengers who crowded its deck made its 
chief adornment. Thirty-eight girls, each typi¬ 
fying a State in the Union, and all crowned with 
tinsel and gold, waved partisan fans, shaded them¬ 
selves with partisan parasols, and all together 
sang partisan songs. The Ship of State was 
cheered to the echo. 

Far down the street the long procession 
unrolled from the rendezvous, and trailed past the 
public reviewing stand, where the Governor, 
whose carriage had been driven from the line, 


THE RALLY. 


99 


stood in the throng of notables, and gazed with 
great admiration on the assembled proof of fealty. 
Then the men who had counted fell to disputing 
as to the number of vehicles, and the length of 
time occupied by the procession in passing a given 
point. 

After dinner the crowds gathered again at the 
court-house, the Ship of State was anchored in the 
shade, and the Governor was introduced to a 
host of admirers. He was a good speaker, loud 
with the frailties of his enemies, and sounding 
with the virtues of his friends. He was apt at 
illustration, humorous, strong to denounce, power¬ 
ful to plead. And when he had closed with a 
peroration that attuned his hearers to serenity in 
partisan faith, the crowds dispersed and flooded 
the town with activity. 

Sidewalks were thronged, stores were occupied, 
salesmen were struggling to attend all comers. 
Alleys, back streets ahd vacant lots were full of 
teams; and everywhere ranged with tireless 
energy the drink-enthused advocates of the latest 
speaker. By sufferance the day was theirs, as a 
week later it would be their mortal enemies’. 
They shouted, talked in roars, sang bits of songs, 
smote comrades with crushing friendship, handled 
cigars in a clumsy fashion, and then drank 
again. 


100 


AN INDIANA MAN. 


Decorated dwellings showed the politics of 
households. About the residences most elabo¬ 
rately, most gorgeously adorned, were all the 
evidences of many guests. Parlors were thrown 
open in unused splendor; lawns and porticoes were 
gay with chairs that seldom saw the sun; 
there was a strange air of activity about the 
kitchen, and feasts were preparing to befit the day. 
John Haberly found food for his cynicism in all 
this. He wanted to see the folly from a spec¬ 
tator’s standpoint. He took his team of trotters 
and the carriage, took Lawyer Poole and the 
Grant girls for a drive. He went slowly around 
the town, remarking the transient grandeur, 
commented on it in a way strange to the ladies, 
but not in a manner to surprise Lawyer Poole. 
They bowed to many and were gazed after by 
all. This was John Haberly, the manager of the 
campaign. Such a progress on such a day was 
treading very close on the confines of greatness. 

Evening, twilight, darkness, midnight, followed 
each other, as the tides fell, and at daybreak 
Fairview rose dizzy and disliking to work. The 
town was gorged by the feast of yesterday. It 
would take days in returning to regular life. 
The litter would stain the greensward and bye- 
places for weeks, and so the rally would pass into 
history. 


THE RALLY . 


101 


Ellet Grant was around town all day, but did 
not once touch liquor. He had spent money for 
his bibulous supporters, but had managed so 
gracefully to avoid drinking that no offense was 
felt. He was proud of his strength, and prouder 
of his tact. Surely he had nothing further to 
fear from this bane of politics. He had proved 
he could drink or let it alone, and the incident of 
convention time might never be repeated. 

Frank Logan was making the race for sheriff 
an exceedingly interesting one. The Democrats 
had pinned their faith to him as in all respects a 
fitting opponent of Ellet Grant. He was particu¬ 
larly strong in the out townships, and in none 
more so than Franklin. The Republican nominee 
took a run down there, and spent the night with 
Dave Edwards and his boys. The iour voters in 
the family were solid for Ellet, and gave rather 
bright reports of his standing in the township. 

“But I learn Frank Logan has a strong pull 
down here, and I am afraid he will change some 
of your friends before election,” said Ellet. 

“Now don’t balk before you come to the hill,” 
said philosophical old David. “We will take care 
of Franklin, and it won’t cost you no money, 
neither. Everybody won’t vote for you, but you’ll 
get a bigger majority than any man on the ticket. 
Folks down here recollects that you always 


102 


AN INDIANA MAN. 


attended their spelling schools and things, even 
before you was a candidate.” 

Ellet complimented the supper. He sat with the 
boys, and told them some stories he had lately 
learned. They laughed immoderately, and waited 
for more. He ranked above them; both he and 
they saw that. He was stirred to talk well. 
They respected him for his quick wit, his evident 
equality with the “big bugs in town,” his kindly 
manners, that could surely grow in no meaner 
field than a man’s true heart. He drew them 
after him to a talk with Uncle David, on affairs 
by no means touching elections. He paid gentle 
deference to the farmer’s wife, and retired at last 
with the assurance that the whole family would 
make his cause their own. 

He visited a dozen places in the township the 
next day, wearing an air of easy confidence, yet 
binding the voters to him in an obligation which 
was not less effective because unexpressed in 
words. He prolonged the tour, and saw the 
faithful over in Liberty, and Monroe, and Star. 
He reached home Saturday night, and found an 
encouraging message from Haberly. 


CHAPTER XIII. 


SAUTERN DEFENDANT. 

Court was in session, and Sautern was defendant 
in a civil suit for damages. He had sold liquor to 
Matt Tolliver, a confirmed drunkard, notwith¬ 
standing the legal notification to desist. Matt was 
an old soldier, a former comrade of Poole, the 
prosecuting attorney, and was a pensioner of the 
government. One day, directly after drawing his 
quarterly allowance, Matt had “just dropped in at 
Sautern’s” to invite congratulations and to express 
his boundless contempt for a charity so limited as 
to allow him but $8 a month, when the govern¬ 
ment could well afford to give him $20. He 
found the proprietor so much of his own mind 
that they pledged each other in a second bowk 

Charley, the worker, with a scent unerring, 
found him there, after the fourth potion had made 
him generous, and became at once his guardian. 

“You better go home now, Matt,” Sautern had 

said, “and put up your money.” 

But Matt wanted the proprietor to keep the 
roll; he wanted Charley to count it and turn it 

103 


104 


AN INDIANA MAN. 


over to Jap Sweet, the bar-tender. He wanted to 
do as he pleased with his own. It was his own, 
and if he took it home his wife would confiscate 
it. She always did. Women were forever inter¬ 
fering. 

Matt did not go home to dinner. He was not 
present there at supper. At 9 o’clock Mrs. 
Tolliver came for him. She was a tall, athletic 
woman, who had outlived beauty and forgotten 
grace. Adversity had made her suspicious, and 
wrongs had taught her persistent self-reliance. 

She walked straight through the screen doors, 
and stood in the center of the room. Business 
suspended for a time, while the men who played 
pool and the others who lined the bar quit their 
pastime, and stared at her with bright anticipa¬ 
tions of a scene. Her husband was not in the 
crowd. 

“ Where’s Matt?” she demanded. 

Sautern waved his hands at the four walls, 
silently parrying the question. 

“Where’s Matt?” she asked again, a little 
sharper than before, and addressing the proprietor 
directly. 

“ I don’t know, Mrs. Tolliver. You can see he 
is not here.” 

“ He has been here, and has been drinking— 
hasn’t he, Jap?” 


SAUTERN DEFENDANT. 


105 


But Jap was deaf to her, and scrubbed the bar 
in a discouraging manner. 

“You have sold him liquor agin my order. 
Now, I want to know where he is, and I’m goin’ 
to know.” 

She started through the crowd, but Sautern 
stood between her and the back room. 

“Now go away, Mrs. Tolliver, and don’t make 
a fuss. I tell you Matt isn’t here. He was here 
this forenoon, and took a drink with some man— 
I don’t know who; but Matt didn’t buy it; the 
other man paid for it. Now, go on home, and 
don’t make a fuss.” 

a Go home and leave him here to be robbed? 
Let me alone! Let go of me! Let go of 
me!” 

She twisted out of his grasp, dodged past him, 
and threw her bony figure against the door. It 
opened, revealing four startled men around a 
small table. Matt had a hand full of cards. The 
others had hands full of ivory discs. She marched 
straight to her husband, helped him to rise, and 
then demanded: 

“Where’s your money?” 

“I aint got no money, Susann. Lost it on four 
deuces. Luck dead agin me. There’s no money; 
so go on home, Susann.” 

His comrades in the game had vanished. 


106 


AN INDIANA MAN. 


“Where’s his money, Sautern? You give me 
back the $24 he drawed to-day, or I’ll haul you up. 
You give—” 

“Now you get out—both of you,” cried the 
proprietor. There are things no business man 
can stand, and a threat is one»of them. “Get 
out!” 

With much commotion, many vociferous cries, 
a deal of pushing and struggling, the two are 
ejected. A crowd gathers about the door. The 
boys hoot and follow the pair home. People hear 
about it all over town, and continue dropping in 
at the refectory to jest, and take one drink while 
they talk. 

Mrs. Tolliver saw Attorney Poole the next 
day, and a suit for damages was begun. Before 
convention Sautern would have felt safe enough; 
Poole was under obligations to him. But 
since the prosecutor had been sacrificed there was 
no telling what the attorney might do. Yet to 
wait until after election, when that infamous tem¬ 
perance crank, Ezra Fuller, was made prosecutor, 
would be worse; for he would feel called upon to 
institute criminal proceedings as well. To win 
the case now seemed the one way out. 

Sautern called in John Haberly. 

“ Can’t you see the sheriff, and get the right 
kind of men on the jury? ” 





SAUTERN DEFENDANT. 


107 


“ I’ll try, but a sheriff just going out of office 
is a mighty unaccommodating beast, Saut, said 
the manager. But he did the best he could. 

Charley, the worker, had been subpoenaed by 
the prosecution—an unwilling witness. He was 
busy day and night with those whose testimony 
was most damaging. It was to his interest and 
to their interest to let the woman prove as little 
as possible. Sautern was not to blame. He ad 
vised Matt to go home before he had spent a dol¬ 
lar. If Tolliver insisted on sitting into a game of 
poker, that was his own fault; and if he lost 
his money, why—that was one of the things that 
often happened. Sautern was unjustly accused. 
It wasn’t right. 

People talked about the affair all over the 
county. The Republican and the Democrat gave 
it extended notice, and finally public opinion 
seemed to decide that if Sautern was guilty the 
law was wrong. That relieved the defendant, 
and made Mrs. Tolliver’s claim for $5,000 dam¬ 
ages an unparalleled persecution. 

But Poole was in earnest. He would not talk 
about the case on the street. He seemed to know 
when a man came to him from Sautern on the 
subject, or from any one else in Sautern’s interest, 
and he told all of them, and told them plainly, 
that he was after a verdict, and that he would 


108 


AN INDIANA MAN . 


certainly get it. He could prove by a cloud of 
witnesses that Tolliver had bought drink after 
drink, and paid for them; that Sautern himself 
had at length gone behind the bar and waited on 
him; that the pensioner had taken the beggarly 
remnant of his money, and followed a party into 
the little back room, where they began playing, 
only to cease when destitution and Susann ended 
the game. 

The prosecuting attorney knew all the wit¬ 
nesses, knew the methods that would be employed 
to keep them from testifying, and knew just how 
to prevent that action. He could afford to decline 
with emphasis all invitations to “go and see 
Sautern and fix the thing up.’* People generally 
were gratified, and began to look forward with 
surprised interest to the vigorous prosecution of a 
saloon-keeper. Public opinion, that mercury in 
the thermometer of history, had shifted again, and 
was now risen to the approval of rectitude. 

Tolliver’s was the fourth case on the civil 
docket. The third was closed early in the after¬ 
noon, and the judge called the next in order; but 
the attorne} 7- in a matter of smaller importance 
asked that the case of Tolliver versus Sautern be 
passed till the following day, while his more 
trivial contest be settled in the short remnant of 
the present session. Pie talked a moment with 


SATJTERN DEFENDANT. 


109 


the interested attorneys, and they gracefully gave 
way. They could do nothing of importance this 
evening, any way. And so the announcement 
went out that Susann Tolliver’s big case would 
begin in the morning. 


CHAPTER XIV. 

POOLE WAKES TO MANHOOD. 

Lawyer Poole sat alone in his office that night, 
smoking a very disreputable pipe and gazing off 
across the table, which was littered with books 
and papers. He had about made up his mind to 
cut loose from the old crowd, and prosecute vig¬ 
orously every case on the docket. He was weary 
unto death with the domination of that gang at 
Sautern’s. He stood head and shoulders above 
them in learning and wit; he knew that. And it 
brought him no little shame to reflect in the same 
moment that they had used him. He looked 
back eight years, and remembered his advent in 
Fairview. How he trembled then on the verge 
of attempt. How nervously he counted all the 
factors that could be employed, and how quickly 
he saw the strength of the saloon interest. With 
a natural bent for politics, he reflected to-night 
that he had devoted his abilities to a very poor 
cause, and sold his services for an exceedingly 
small consideration. He had hobnobbed with the 
worst of them right from the start. And here 


no 


POOLE WAKES TO MANHOOD. 


Ill 


when it paid them to throw him over, how quickly 
they had done it. 

“Oh, well, I don’t blame them,” he said, as he 
bestirred himself to fill his pipe again “I haven’t 
earned decent treatment, and I haven’t received 
it. That’s plain enough—and it’s fair enough, for 
that matter. Serves them right, though, that in 
trying to run that convention with a sort of moral 
shot-gun, they should get the prohibitionist named 
for prosecuting attorney. He’ll make things warm 
next summer—if they don’t buy him. And they 
didn’t get a single man they wanted, excepting 
Dodd. Well, from here out—Come in, come in!” 

This last was directed toward the door, where 
some one was clumsily knocking. It was Petcher, 
attorney for the defense in Sautern’s case. 

“Come in,” said Poole, as the other hesitated 
on the threshold. “ Don’t you know any better 
than to knock at an office door ? Sit down. What 
do you want? 

Petcher was accorded a kinder reception than 
he had expected. It would by no means have 
surprised him had Poole slammed the door in his 
face. Yet, unstrained as was the greeting—for 
the apparent rudeness was a part of their olden 
familiarity—the visiting lawyer saw this was not 
the Poole he had known for the past eight years. 
He caught a defiant ring in that steady tone 


112 


AN INDIANA MAN. 


which boded no good to his mission. Still, at the 
worst, it was only a question of amount. An 
unpurchasable man was simply inconceivable. 

“ Poole, what are you going to do in the Tol¬ 
liver case? ” 

“ Going to sock you for the maximum damages 
—that’s what.” 

Petcher searched his vest for a cigar, and asked 
with unruffled air, “ Isn’t that pretty rough, con¬ 
sidering everything? ” 

“ Well, considering what? You and I might 
as well talk plain, Petcher. We know each other 
and each other’s past. No use beating about the 
bush. What do you want? ” 

u Considering the services Sautern has rendered 
you. He has been pretty good to you, Poole. 
It isn’t hardly right for you to jump on him now 
just because some gin-soaked old pensioner got 
tight in his place. Let’s continue this case until 
next term. Maybe you can see the thing as you 
ought before that time.” 

“ An d have Ezra Fuller begin a State prosecu¬ 
tion? For God’s sake—are you less afraid of 
that prohibitionist than you are of me? Then we 
don’t postpone. Petcher, I have made up my 
mind to cut loose from the whole blasted gang. 

There is room in this town for a decent lawyer_ 

besides yourself, of course; besides yourself. I 


POOLE WAKES TO MANHOOD. 


113 


am going to enter in that class. If you came 
here for a postponement, you are left. I try this 
case like all the others—and I try them hard.” 

H If you don’t think people down on the street 
can hear you plain enough, why don’t you call 
them up? ” asked Petcher, irritated at the other’s 
lack of discretion. u Here, have a cigar.” 

Poole did not touch the proffered roll. 

“ When you go out of office, you will drop like 
a collapsed balloon, Poole. Nothing kills a lawyer 
off like serving a term as prosecutor. Now you 
can starve along here without a salary, or you 
can take regular pay from Sautern and Steele and 
Ringer—just as you like. This prohibition fellow 
is going to shake up the dry bones in Fairview, 
and these men will have a lot of cases to defend. 
You continue this one, and I am authorized to 
offer you a thousand dollars a year to defend all 
their cases, and you can take as much other busi 
ness as you can get. What do you say? ” 

With a perfect understanding of the lucrative 
returns for legal services in Indiana county seats, 
the writer is abundantly safe in saying that Mr. 
Petcher was the bearer of a very flattering offer. 

“Why do you want to continue this case if you 
are afraid of my official successor? ” 

“ Because you will defend the State cases so 
much more ably than I can,” said wily Mr. 


114 


AN INDIANA MAN. 


Petcher, with a graceful inclination of the head. 

“ Petcher, you don’t touch me. You ought to 
know me better. You fellows have some scheme. 
What it is I don’t know, and I don’t need to know. 
But you can make no headway here. Go back 
and tell Saut I am out for blood. I will make 
the ring think before this term of court is over 
that kingdom has come, and they are not ready.” 

But Mr. Petcher retained his seat undisturbed. 
After a time he continued: 

“ Now here. There’s no use acting this way. 
I’ve seen prosecuting attorneys go out of office 
before, and they generally act as if it was a 
mortal offense to ask for their retirement. Don’t 
be unreasonable. You’ve had your share. None 
of us gets all he wants. You can do better by 
acting sensibly than by this foolishness. Can’t 
we arrange it for me to win this case of Sautern’s? 
You know plenty of ways. You might—” 

“I might throw it over. Yes, I know. But I 
won’t do it. No use, Petcher; I mean it. You 
can’t buy me. I am going on the dead square 
from this out. I am tired of the whole thing. 
There is better work in me than cleaning up 
Sautern’s waste.” 

“I read a pretty thing in that line the other 
day,” said Petcher, affably. “ The Governor 
.meets one of his principal workers on the square, 


POOLE WAKES TO MANHOOD. 


115 


and says to him, ‘Well, how’s politics?’ And 
the worker says, ‘ I don’t know, haven’t been 
down to the saloon this morning,”’ and the 
lawyer laughed very heartily. He would like to 
penetrate this armor of Poole’s with some sort of 
a weapon. 

“ That’s just it,” said the prosecutor, “and I’m 
ashamed of it. The idea of a free people sur¬ 
rendering their own government into hands like 
that. Why, we had better have a monarchy— 
far and away. I won’t do it! I won’t do it! I 
tell you there is villainy enough in the men who 
sent you here to sell your wife or my mother into 
slavery to-morrow.” 

“ Oh, there is! Look here. If we cannot buy 
you, maybe we can pound a little reason into you. 
You come down from that high horse, Poole, or 
your own official record goes before the court. 
You hear me. If it’s war you want you may get 
a stomach full.” 

Poole got up from the table, crossed his hands 
behind him and walked the length of the room, as 
if considering. Petcher let him go till the leaven 
should work. Presently the prosecutor said: 

“You simply don’t understand me. I can’t 
blame you, for I have been wallowing in the same 
trough with this sour-mash gang for eight years. 
Of course, when I say I am through, they don’t 


116 


AN INDIANA MAN. 


believe it; but it’s true. This town is dead as a 
door nail, and has been for twenty years. Yet 
there are six saloons in it. The men who own 
them control practical politics in the county. 
They name every officer, or buy him after better 
men name him. They govern the town. They 
fix the street grade. They locate bridges. They 
vote special tax, and direct how to spend it. 
They even dictate who shall be so fortunate as to 
gain a home in the poor-house. They run not 
only the whole municipal, but the social machinery, 
from top to bottom. No one dares to stand 
against them. When Elder Bishop preached the 
truth about them he was run out of town, and we 
all stood on the street corners and laughed. Not 
a church, or a lodge, or a store, or even a private 
family but it confesses some things must not be 
done because the saloons oppose; or will be done 
because the saloons want them. Now, I know the 
whole thing from bark to center, and I am out 
against it. Don’t think I am fooling. From here 
forward, I fight the saloon. About my official 
record—it’s public. Hunt up what you like, and 
use it as you want to. You will always find 
me here—next to the bank, up stairs and 
first door to the right, as the advertisement 
says. Now, don’t waste any more time with 
me.” 


POOLE WAKES TO MANHOOD. 


117 


It was hardly professional courtesy, and Mr. 
Petcher’rose in a great passion. 

“ I don’t have to sit in your office, Mr. Poole,” 
he said, hotly. “I have rooms of my own.” 

u Then go there,” rejoined the prosecutor, reck¬ 
lessly. 

And it was an actual fact that Poole had not 
for one moment, in all his talk, reflected that his 
oath of office, his bounden duty, required at his 
hands just the work he had resolved to do. It 
was like a newly-discovered virtue. Pique had 
begun what honor would finish; but the homely 
quality of fealty to a public trust was buried far 
too deep in a mass of baser habit to easily dawn 
on the conscience of a practical man. 

Next day, to the surprise of every one, Petcher 
asked for a continuance in Sautern’s case. Poole 
opposed it, and he threw into his opposition such 
vigor and earnestness that those on the inside con¬ 
cluded something was wrong. The clerk nodded 
to the sheriff, and the professional jurymen 
moistened their lips in expectancy. 

But the judge had had no revelation; and so, as 
he believed Sautern was safer in Poole’s hands 
than in those of that fiery young attorney who 
would surely be elected; and as he knew who 
was making judges in Fairview County, he ruled 
against the motion. Then every method known 


118 


AN INDIANA MAN. 


to the practice was employed to secure a delay; 
but Poole was better armed than Petcher, and 
met every charge with a readiness that showed 
the gang the metal and the stature of the man 
they had lost. 

At noon the work of securing a jury was begun, 
and one after another the old, tried and true 
patriots who had haunted every session of court 
for a dozen years, were rejected by Poole. Some 
question, gleaned from the abundance at hand, 
would pierce their harness, and down they would 
go. Adjournment saw only four peers selected. 
This was very curious. When similar cases had 
been brought previously the panel could be filled 
in half an hour. The talk on the streets of Fair- 
view that night was that Poole was mad as hornets, 
and would really try and win that case against 
Sautern. 

The sheriff couldn’t locate Charley, the worker. 
His subpoena was returned “Not found.” A 
ripple of glee told that the spirits of the defense 
were rising. 

Next morning the case was called, and a jury 
was secured by noon. It seemed a particularly 
sensible body of men. Most of them were farmers, 
and all were reasonably free from the dominion of 
Sautern and his gang. One by one the witnesses 
were sworn, and one by one they showed in every 


POOLE WAKES TO MANHOOD. 


119 


word and action that they were out of place in 
the prosecution. But the event of the day came 
just before adjournment, when Petcher's first wit¬ 
ness, Alva Martin, a cooper, said he walked with 
Tolliver from the bank to Sautern’s on the occa* 
sion of the pensioner’s drawing and losing his 
allowance; that he bought and paid for the liquor 
that Tolliver drank; that he went into the poker 
game with him, and saw him give Mrs. Tolliver, 
when she broke in the door, more than the $24 
he had when he entered. 

Petcher fairly beamed on the witness. He had 
strong bits of the evidence repeated now and then, 
and placed this substantial timber where it would 
do the most good in the framework of his defense. 

“ Take the witness,” he said at last, in that tone 
which is the condensation of assurance. 

“ You know you are under oath, do you, Mar¬ 
tin?” asked Poole, in a familiar, not a professional 
manner. 

“ Ya-as, of course.” 

Poole looked at him very straight for some 
seconds. It was not a dark frown, or anything 
frightful. It was simply the direct gaze of 
one man who knows a lie, at another who 
tells it. 

“ Know the penalty for perjury, Martin?” This 
rather kindly. 


120 


AN INDIANA MAN. 


“I object!” shouted Petcher, and then he 
bristled with indignation for some moments. But 
Poole was not disturbed. He asked a number of 
the most irrelevant questions, and so consumed 
the session. 

Right at the door he met Sautern face to face. 

“ Saut, you heard Martin’s testimony, did you?” 

“Yes.” 

“Well, you produce Charley, the worker, here 
in court by io o’clock to-morrow morning, or I 
will put you to the trouble of defending a charge 
of subornation of perjury.” 

“ You don’t know what you are talking about,” 
gasped Sautern, livid with anger and fright. He 
was off his guard. Had it come to this? Was 
it possible he could be talked to in such a manner, 
and by an elected official? The day of miracles 
seemed come again. All Fairview joined in the 
stare of amazement. Poole’s defiance of the 
powers that be was as public as the court-house 
steeple. No one could explain or minify that 
command, accusation, threat. News of the event 
traveled into the country with the home-going 
teams, and next day a larger crowd than ever 
gathered at the trial. 

Charley was there. He gave his testimony 
with a great appearance of sincerity. It was not 
of a piece with the rest of the evidence. The gang 


POOLE WAKES TO MANHOOD. 


121 


had learned wisdom somewhere, and the worker 
kept perilously close to the truth. 

And then came the arguments. Some of the 
older residents remembered the day when Poole 
first came to town. They remembered his maiden 
speech at the convention in that presidential cam¬ 
paign, and they remembered how his warm words 
and strong style waked the echoes in their dry old 
hearts, and gained the youngster a place of honor 
in the county and the party. 

Now they recalled that effort, and heard it 
eclipsed. They listened to a man who knew most 
thoroughly all the infamy of the defense; listened 
to him heap reproach upon it in terms of scalding 
truth; listened to him as he turned from thunder¬ 
ous denunciation to sarcasm as acute as it was 
severe. They heard him charge home guilt in 
the debauching of that helpless old veteran, and 
crime in the attempt to escape from its conse¬ 
quences. And they heard him close with the 
bravest, noblest, strongest demand for justice that 
ever the old walls of the room had echoed. 

The jury was won, and the verdict was his first 
height on the way to a new life. 


CHAPTER XV. 

WHO EDITS THE NEWSPAPER? 

It was the last Sunday but one before election. 
Things had improved a little in the past few days. 
Poole was announced as an independent candi¬ 
date for prosecuting attorney, and this is how it 
came about. His conduct during the last term of 
court had proven him fearless, efficient and reli¬ 
able. No one could understand it, but they could 
all see it. The Democratic candidate was not an 
especially strong nomination. Poole in his olden 
state was satisfactory enough to the opposition 
party, and Matthews was only named that the 
ticket might be full. But wise ones everywhere 
knew he would be traded in the interest of Frank 
Logan when it came to the polls. 

There was already a very strong belief that 
Ezra Fuller had pledged himself to certain inter¬ 
ests. A suspicion was awakened when Sautern 
was found to prefer him to Poole as a prosecutor. 
It was strengthened as the campaign progressed, 
and he was found to modify his temperance senti¬ 
ments in the public speeches. And finally it was 


122 



WHO EDITS THE NEWSPAPER? 


123 


confirmed when John Haberly assured the com¬ 
mittee that Fuller’s contribution to the campaign 
fund lay right between the offering of Sam 
Sautern and that of Richard Ringer. 

“ He’s a tish,” said the bolder ones, as they 
discussed Ezra. “He thought he was honest 
when he lived at Hamlet and made red-hot talks 
agin the saloon5 and he thinks he’s honest now 
when he goes about putting salve into all the old 
sores he ever made. He thinks he can L control 
the monster,’ and will prove that he is not afraid, 
by lying down with it in perfect peace of 
mind.” 

Ezra Fuller’s conversion to “ liberal ” views was 
a source of much trouble to the faithful in the out 
townships, and they had taken occasion one night 
in a meeting at Hamlet, to put the case squarely 
before him and demand a pledge in keeping with 
his utterances prior to the nomination utterances 
which won that nomination for him. And, in the 
presence of messengers who could blast him in 
every precinct of the county if he earned the 
hatred of the gang, Ezra declared himself. The 
gang was satisfied, but the honest old fellows 
the fools who thought men meant what they said 
were disappointed. Some of them were ready to 
throw him over. And when, at the close of Fuller s 
speech, a man from Fairview rose and advocated 


124 


AN INDIANA MAN. 


the independent candidacy of Lawyer Poole, he 
found a score of friends on the instant. 

Major Poole had long enjoyed the friendship of 
the Republican. Editor Thompson was willing, on 
very slight provocation, to lay down the journal¬ 
istic dignity, and steep himself in such convivial 
pleasures as were affected by the elect—county 
officers, a few leading merchants, and a fast farmer 
or two. The two men had long been boon compan¬ 
ions in these occasional meetings which took place 
in the large upper rooms of the “ Mammoth build- 
and even the vices known there cemented 
the regard they had for each other. The Repub- 
hcan was for Poole in the county convention, and 
when he was defeated, indulged a very question- 
able editorial comment on the ability of the nominee. 

But party is party; and after some little reflec¬ 
tion Mr. Thompson came out strong for Ezra 
Fuller, reserving the right to say such little kind 
things of the veteran as would do him good when 
the staff of official income should be laid down 
No one objected to that; but when, as dog-days 
ended, and fateful November came in hailing dis¬ 
tance, it was noticed the vetern always fared better 
than the recruit in the Republican's summing up 
of merit; and it was decided to call a halt. But 
Thompson was not an easy man to handle. He 
held such positively ruinous doctrines on the subject 


WHO EDITS THE NEWSPAPER? 125 

of editorial rights, he had gone through such a 
vitrifying process in his twenty years' experience 
on the tripod, that volunteers to teach him his 
duty were not unduly plenteous. 

On the second Saturday night in October, the 
Prohibitionists, always noisy between elections, 
were holding a mass meeting in the public square, 
and a good many of the old guard had been drawn 
to the spot, just to see how young Lawyer Fuller 
would trim his sails in these conflicting breezes. 
This used to be his crowd. Every one of these 
weazened old fellows, proud of lips untouched by- 
alcohol, had hung on the young man’s periods in 
more than one meeting, and had indorsed his 
candidacy with a strength which no one pretended 
to disregard. 

They had been enthusiastically for him from 
the start; but little by little things had been 
occurring to make them question his sincerity, and 
this meeting seemed to have been planned for the 
single purpose of crowding him upon record. 

Below the legislative nominees the Prohibition¬ 
ists had no candidates to offer, but they were 
intensely interested in the prosecuting attorney. 
New laws would be made this winter, partly by 
the counsel of whisky men, and with a view of 
stemming the rising tide of prohibition; and these 
extremists were in a fever of impatience for a man 


126 


AN INDIANA MAN. 


who could and would enforce all such legislation 
as came thus to them, fair spoil of war. A number 
of their leaders addressed the meeting, and repeated 
calls were made for Ezra Fuller. He was in the 
crowd, but well to the rear, and declined to respond 
for a time. When he could not well avoid it 
any longer, the young man made his way 
toward the stand, stopped in front of one of 
the great flaming torchlights which gave illumi¬ 
nation to the grounds, and began a non-committal 
address. 

It was just a collection of dull old saws, that 
could offend no one, be he Christian Jew or Turk. 
But they did not suit the temper of the crowd. 
These may have been “a cranky lot of old fossils,” 
as fresher young men with faultier faces sometimes 
called them; but they were in earnest—and they 
could vote. 

“If elected will you prosecute the cases on the 
docket against Sautern?” some practical fellow 
shouted. 

Fuller tried to dodge by simulating deafness, 
but it did no good. 

u Will you?” “Will you?” came from every 
part of the ground. He must answer. He dared 
not answer “ Yes,” lest the whole force of the gang 
descend like an avalanche upon him. He could 
not stand there and say “No,!’ so he weakly 


WHO EDITS THE NEWSPAPER? 


127 


stepped down, and said neither. But he might 
better have defied than ignored them. 

Some hot-head got the ear of the crowd, and 
began a harangue, pleading for the nomination of 
a Prohibition candidate for prosecuting attorney. 

“We can do nothing without one,” he cried c 
“ Our laws will be laughed at, our work will be 
wasted. And right here, right now, is the place 
and time to prove our strength in Fairview County. 
I’d rather see every man on the Democratic ticket 
elected to-morrow than vote for this man who was 
with us for the nomination, and against us for the 
election.” And the sentiment was cheered to the 
echo. 

Some one shouted “Major Poole!” The lawyer 
had witnessed the shameful retreat of his late suc¬ 
cessful rival, and was laughingly commenting on 
it to Thompson when he heard his name called. 
His eye met the bright, blazing look of inspiration 
on the face of the editor. Both were veterans in 
politics, but the chances presented right here 
rather staggered them. 

“Think quick,” said Thompson. “If they 
mean it, go in.” Then he shouted aloud, “Major 
Poole!” 

They meant it. Not a man in that crowd had 
forgotten the Tolliver trial. They had lain awake 
nights, glorying in his courage and his skill. They 


128 


AN INDIANA MAN. 


had no chance to doubt his sincerity, and almost 
wished his conversion had come earlier. But they 
had been pinning their faith to Fuller then, and 
never till this instant, when the cowardice of the 
latter consumed in an instant all their fealty for 
him, did the Prohibitionists turn to Poole. In that 
revulsion all his ability, all his courage, his fight 
against and victory over the gang, came back to 
them like a blaze, illuminating the surer path. 
Retributive justice to Fuller, no less than their 
own plans, were furthered by the choice; and the 
shouting continued: 

“Major Poole! ” “ Major Poole! ” 

He had decided. The prosecuting attorney 
paced slowly across the grass, and mounted the rude 
platform that had served as pulpit for all manner 
of political gospels that summer. He stepped to 
the front. The crowd pressed closer and hushed 
into attention. His right hand was thrust into his 
coat, his left was behind him in that old-fashioned 
attitude he fancied the great lawyers loved. His 
face was lifted, his eyes were bright, and all about 
the man was that unnamed air which presaged a 
message. No one introduced him, and no one 
needed to. 

“Gentlemen,” he began; and then added, not 
as an afterthought, but as purposely set apart, 
“and ladies!” There was greeting in the first 


WHO EDITS THE NEWSPAPER? 


129 


word; there was a caress in the last. “I am not 
a Prohibitionist.” Some smart person started to 
say, “We all know that,” but the orator cut in 
with a strength which ingulfed and a dignity 
which abashed the disturber—“but I keep my 
word.” There was a perceptible sound of assent 
that rose to a modest applause. u I am as inde¬ 
pendent a man as any of you. I have discharged 
the duties of prosecuting attorney of Fairview 
County for four years, and my record is as open 
as the day. It is not for me, but the people, to 
approve or condemn it. My associates and friends 
in this city have ever been the men who gave me 
my office. But a short time ago a case arose in 
which an old soldier, injured in the defense of 
your home and mine, was robbed in the house of 
one of the politics makers, the opinion makers, 
the officer makers, of Fairview. The injured wife 
came to me to prosecute her suit for damages. 
When I was admitted to practice at the bar of 
Indiana—a bar which holds names bright in the 
diadem of justice—I swore to maintain such 
actions as seemed to me legal and just, to employ 
in that maintaining such means as are consistent 
with truth, and to never reject, for any reason 
personal to myself, the cause of the defenseless or 
the oppressed. That was my promise, and that 
was the pledge that was kept. Was it for me to 


130 


AN INDIANA MAN. 


betray Matt Tolliver’s case because a defendant 
could punish me? By no means. I am not so 
beholden to him or to you, or to any one on earth, 
as to perjure myself for hire. And I say to you 
now, that if I am in this office when your 
laws are made, I shall prosecute them with all 
the vigor and ability and persistence of which 
I am master, till the voice of the people—in 
Fairview County, at least—shall be the voice of 
God.” 

There was a very whirlwind of applause as the 
lawyer’s right hand, withdrawn from his bosom, 
visibly lifted them toward the Author of right. 
An impetuous disciple of the new faith leaped to 
the stand, and in a tumult of “Ayes!” pledged the 
last Prohibition vote in Fairview County to Major 
Poole for prosecutor. 

Thompson took the arm of his friend, and they 
walked away. 

u It’s your night, Poole. Things are coming your 
way. I can’t go back on the ticket, but I’ll say 
all any man on earth can say for you—and I hope 
you’ll get the office again; I do, honest. It will 
serve them right.” 

“You go slow,” said the generous Major. 
“ Don’t hurt yourself with the gang. Your friend¬ 
ship is very grateful, and I would be making a 
very poor return if I let you break with those 



WHO EDITS THE NEWSPAPER?- 131 

fellows, and lose by serving me* They can hurt 
you more than they can me. n f 

But when the Republican come out next week 
there was a graphic account of the meeting, with 
the incidents that made it memorable; an editorial 
regret that Ezra Fuller had not measured up to 
the standard of his opportunities, and a more than 
kind word for Major Poole. There was much to 
be said for the man. He was true to his party, 
and had the courage to so declare himself in the 
very face of the crowd. He was really entitled 
to the office, and it would not be strange if he 
won it. 

That was too much for an organ to say; but it 
was nothing to a column contribution signed 
“Veritas,” which appeared on the very first page. 
Whoever the writer was, he knew the county. 
He dealt in facts as sharp as poniards, and as 
many-sided as crystals. He was unsparing of the 
gang, and named men, recited events, recorded 
dates, with a precision and persistence that added 
weight to the undoubted truth of every line. 
“Veritas” advocated the election of Major Poole 
for the good of the old party, for the vindication 
of the new, for the benefit of the public generally. 

It was a bombshell in the camp of the faithful. 
The boys had not done carrying the last of the 
edition to the post-office when groups could be 


132 


AN INDIANA MAN. 


seen all over town, listening to the strong words 
of the unknown writer. Who was “Veritas?” 
No matter. He was dangerous or delightful— 
depending on how you looked at the success of 
the ticket. 

Just after noon John Haberly climbed the stairs 
to the Republican sanctum, accompanied by Sims, 
the county committeeman, and Sautern, the head 
and front of the offending. Thompson received 
them, gave them such chairs as his place afforded, 
and sat down to await the charge. No need to 
begin jesting, or attempt to deprecate the gath¬ 
ered wrath of that trio. The manager opened the 
fight. 

“Thompson, who’s ‘Veritas’ ?” 

It was blunt, but no more blunt than the 
answer. 

“ I will not tell you.” 

“What?” in angry surprise, from Sims and 
Sautern. 

“ I will not tell you,” repeated the gaunt editor, 
calmly turning his eyes on the vendor of intoxi¬ 
cants. Evidently, Mr. Haberly must manage 
this thing carefully. Temper would do it no 
good. 

“We think, Thompson, that was a very grave 
mistake of yours, printing such an article right 
here ten days before election. .It will do the 


WHO EDITS THE NEWSPAPERf 


133 


ticket no end of harm. You know we all expect 
you to stand by the regular nominees from start 
to finish, and it is a real calamity to have such a 
thing occur. You get the tax-list and the county 
printing, and all the blanks, and whatever adver¬ 
tisements the sheriff or other officers have to give 
out, besides all those of the attorneys on our side, 
and it is no more than fair for you to support our 
ticket when we make it, even if all your friends 
are not on it. We went to a heap of trouble, and 
just as we have got Ezra Fuller fixed so he isn’t 
dangerous,'here you come along with your old 
‘Veritas,’ and spoil the whole arrangement.” 

“ I am supporting your ticket,” said Thompson, 
not overlooking the latter and more important 
admission. “Veritas” might need it. “The 
paper has a dozen paragraphs and items, urging 
the voters to do their duty by depositing a clean 
ballot from top to bottom; telling them the strong 
points in our men and our measures, and the weak 
points in the enemy. Have you read them? ” 

“ Yes, but then you spoil it all when you say 
what you do about Poole, and this ‘ Veritas,’ who¬ 
ever he is, makes an awful mess. That will cost 
us scores of votes. It will beat Fuller, and most 
likely carry down other candidates. You 11 see 
next Monday the Democrats will pull down their 
candidate for prosecutor, and trade high and low 


134 


AN INDIANA MAN 


for clerk and sheriff. You can’t do that sort of 
thing here. The boys won’t stand it. It’s an 
awful blunder/ And we must know who wrote 
that article. That’s the first thing.” 

“And then what? ” asked Thompson,, with pro¬ 
voking coolness. 

“ Then you must get out extras from now till 
election, and try to undo the damage.” 

“How? ” 

“Attack Poole. We can give you plenty of 
ammunition. He has done lots of crooked things. 
Lay this week’s issue on one of the boys, and dis¬ 
charge him till after election—or something. And 
then whoop it up for the ticket till the polls 
close.” 

But all this was not enough for Sautern. He 
was mad from center to circumference, and could 
scarcely restrain his anger from breaking out in 
harsh, profane tirades against.this fool editor, who 
had told the truth. 

# “ Naw, that ain’t half, John,” he said, impa¬ 
tiently. “ This is the blackest treachery ever I 
seen. Take back every word you said, and then 
give up the name of the man who wrote this—” 

“ Gentlemen,” said the editor, “ we may as well 
end this delightful conversation. You are not 
running this paper, and I am. Leastwise, T think 
I am. At any rate I pay the bills, do the work 


WHO EDITS THE NEWSPAPERt 


135 


and attend to the business, and I am going to set 
up my type to say just what things I please. I 
don’t please to take back a word, because every 
word was as true as gospel. And as for telling 
who ‘ Veritas ’ is, I won’t do it.” 

“Why, you must, Thompson,” said Sims. 
“Isn’t this a public paper? ” 

“It’s a public paper from a private office. It’s 
public when it’s published. Up here I m boss. 
You have no more right to come in and dictate 
how to run this place than I have to take charge 
of Sautern’s saloon or your hardware store. 
What you do there is your own business; its effect 
on the public is public business. The former I 
cannot interfere with; the latter any one may criti¬ 
cise. So with the Republican. It’s yours only 
when it’s delivered to the people. From that 
time forward you may do as you like with the 
copy you get. Before that you have no right to 
interfere—and you won’t interfere much with me, 
neither.” 

“I demand the name of the writer of that 
‘Veritas’ article,” shouted Sautern, rising angrily. 

“Demand and be hanged. I won’t tell you. 
It’s none of your business. If you are aggrieved, 
go get your Ezra Fuller to sue me for libel. I 
can then take all the responsibility on my own 
shoulders, or make the author answer for his share 


136 


AN INDIANA MAN. 


of the crime, just as I like. But I don’t want any 
of you people to overlook the fact that I am run¬ 
ning this paper, and your only remedy—if you 
don’t like it—is to pay up and quit. This thing 
of making the whole town bound in the manage¬ 
ment and free in the expense won’t work in the 
Republican .” 

And that was as near satisfaction as they could 
come. 


CHAPTER XVI. 


ELECTION. 

So here was the strange condition of the gang 
pulling for prohibition Ezra Fuller against cor¬ 
rupt old Poole, as they had come to call him. 
Every hour the truth became plainer. The in¬ 
cumbent was more dangerous to them than was 
the novitiate. Anti-saloon men everywhere were 
warned by that, and they trusted the older man. 
Some of them swore they would trade Dodd votes 
for him, even if it elected a Democratic clerk and 
sheriff too. 

Poor John Haberly’s hands were very full. It 
took a heap of money, he said, and an almighty 
sight of night riding. True, Ellet Grant was tol¬ 
erably safe, but then even Ellet could not afford 
to refuse his assessments. He was a pretty strong 
man, but in the tangle which had developed this 
past .week he was by no means strong enough to 
chance the whirlpools of desperate political 
straights. He gave up money easier now than 
formerly. He was at first less cautious what was 
done with it, was later less careful not to find out, 


187 


138 


AN INDIANA MAN. 


and at last he was willing to see its vile commis¬ 
sions, and to speed it heartily. 

Election day was cold and rainy. “A Demo¬ 
crat day,” said Haberly, gaily, as he drove into 
town early Tuesday morning. 

“ Where you been, John? ” asked Sims, the cen¬ 
tral committeeman. 

“ Looking at the calves on pasture,” said the 
astute Haberly. “Did you ever notice that the 
better they were fed the easier they could be kept 
together? ” 

He was about town from early in the morning 
till far past midnight, and made no sign that con¬ 
fessed his forty-eight hours continuous riding, but 
his jaded team stood in the stalls and sighed with 
a thankfulness that was almost human. 

Charley, the worker, was very busy. He dis¬ 
played an air of importance—even arrogance_ 

that was not equalled by the greatest magnate in 
Fairview County. He talked loud, shouting from 
the middle of the street for the challengers to stop 
a certain vote. He called men by their given 
names, and ordered them to “Come here,” with 
an authority that really deceived him, though, 
perhaps, not any one else. Still Haberly and the 
rest of them flattered him enough to get a great 
day’s work done by the only man at once shrewd 
enough and base enough for its accomplishment. 


election. 


139 


He knew the voters who were weak, and took 
them up the alley, laboring with them, ranging 
from Sautern’s back door to Ringer’s back door, 
and from there to Steele’s; making occasional 
dives into the Democrat politics factories, and 
patronizing the bar there with the most charming 
absence of partiality. He had plenty of money, 
and hurrahed for the ticket with contagious con¬ 
stancy, proving its merit by vicarious generosity. 

The law said no saloon should be open on elec¬ 
tion day, but of course no one did more than 
pretend to obey that piece of legislative foolishness. 
The front doors were securely locked, and the 
windows most securely blinded; but back doors 
and side doors were as hospitable as ever. The 
law said no intoxicating liquor should be sold, 
bartered or given away from the hour when the 
polls were opened till the hour when the polls 
were closed. But that was a dead letter—a very 
dead letter—in Fairview. Should the deities who 
made the day great have no libations poured upon 
their altars? 

Charley found his voters defiant, resolute 
against the ticket, full of argument and brave 
words for Poole and Frank Logan, the opposi¬ 
tion State and the opposition national ticket. 
He labored with them in soggy eloquence; 
he talked very plainly, even offensively; but no 


140 


AN INDIANA MAN. 


anger was roused. He led them around to the 
nearest groggery, and let them have whatever 
they wanted—no matter how they meant to vote. 
He was not a man to make enemies on account 
of politics. Let a man vote his own senti¬ 
ments here; that was Charley’s way. This 
was not Florida, nor yet Mississippi, and men 
might vote as they pleased in Fairview. 
And have another drink; and another; and 
another. 

But that other ticket was a beastly thing. 
Wasn t a decent man on it from president down. 
Look at their candidates in Fairview County; 

Knights of the Golden Circle and secessionists_ 

every one of them. And then look at ours. 
Every man on our ticket is a gentleman. Fellow 
can vote that straight through, and be proud of it. 
And they are generous men, too. They don’t 
want a man to help them for nothing Look here. 
Here’s a bill that goes with every ticket. Take 
another drink. Now let’s go. 

And from defiance and self-reliance, the voter 
turns to tractibility, to concession, to compliance. 
Charley walks with him to the very polls, sees 
him deposit that very ballot and no other—then 
drops him, turns from him, abandons him, despises 
him with the loathing of a base man for one still 
baser and catches the manager’s eye, follows the 


ELECTION. 


141 


directing glance to some new victim, and continues 
the work of freedom. 

If the voter were turbulent, he was purchased; 
if weak, he was driven; if honest, no one ap¬ 
proached him. That were a blunder greater 
than a crime. But the workers were held 
responsible for the yeomen assigned them, 
and it was a flagrant dereliction to let one man 
get away. 

“Isn’t costing as much this year as usual,is it?” 
asked Sims of John Haberly, when the mid-after¬ 
noon pause gave them a little rest before the final, 
rushing close. 

“No,” said the slightly disgusted manager. 
“Voters are getting cheaper every.year.” 

Each man knew his duty when the thickening 
crowds warned that the day was ending. A little 
knot around the polling place watched each 
approaching voter. The opposing parties were 
similarly manned, were armed with like weapons, 
and differed chiefly in the amount of ammunition to 
be used. The advance, the grapple with each 
floating prize was the same in every case. The 
stream began clear enough in the morning, and 
ran with varying translucency all day, only to 
thicken into a torrent of muddy waters as evening 
darkened toward night, until at the-close every 
nerve and fiber of those who ran elections were 


142 


AN INDIANA MAN. 


bent to leave the imprint of deepest impurity on 
the page of liberty’s record. 

All that is meant in the olden calling and 
anointing of kings is implied in the franchise of 
to-day. God chose the leaders, and set the seal 
of approval upon them. This divine attribute of 
election is wrested from deity, and lodged in the 
hands of men. Should they not reverently approach 
their duty, and exercise in purity the warrant of 
Omnipotence? 


CHAPTER XVII. 


a patriot’s gospel. 

Ellet Grant had been sheriff a year. A thous¬ 
and things which had shocked him at first were 
trivial to him now. He came to his office fresh 
from the purity of a home which did not know 
the deeps that lay beneath the fair fabric of their 
commonwealth. He found with a surprise which 
he soon learned to hide that what was shame to 
honest men was matter of pride to those in 
authority. He found the guns of accusation were 
silenced between the violators of truth in his own 
party and the like offenders in opposing forces. 
He found they met on fraternal grounds, and 
laughed at crimes that he had thought beyond the 
daring of men to do even in secret. He even 
found—they attended to that—his own tenure of 
office stained all over with the mire of corruption. 
Yet he did not revolt. He told these things at 
home more by the topics he treated silently than 
by the many things he talked about. 

Old Wesley had been an Abolitionist at one 
time, and was fired with the single passion for 

143 


144 AN INDIANA MAN. 

right and freedom. He based his prayers on that, 
and fully believed whatever needed justice could 
secure it through the straight highway of recti¬ 
tude. He believed as fully now in prohibition; 
and when he learned by shrewd questions—which 
his own son had not the shrewdness to parry— 
that the blackness of darkness enveloped the elec¬ 
tion franchise, he gathered in silence the strength 
and the material for future uses. He was filled 
with a purpose that consumed his ordinary quiet. 
A light they had never seen in the old man’s eyes 
began to tell of a work for which his final strength 
was fitting. 

And when the next campaign came on old Wes¬ 
ley Grant became a power in the field. 

Ellet lived at Fairview,in a cosy home in which 
Esther presided with a grace and sweetness that 
won both her and her brother prompt social 
recognition. The girl found with that quick 
intuition which is purely feminine, though not 
monopolized by women, that her intimacy with 
the Misses Haberly harmed her somewhat. But 
they had been the first to greet her, they had 
troubled themselves in a thousand ways to smooth 
her pathway in the town, and were bound, more¬ 
over, by their brother’s services, to receive her 
kindest treatment. In the church, and all the 
little pleasant affairs that grew from that connec- 


A PATRIOTS GOSPEL. 


145 


tion; in the street, and even in the ordinary meet¬ 
ings of the place, she found no audience so small 
or so large that it did not raise its eyebrows a 
little when she knit her fellowship with these two 
girls. At first Esther did not understand it. 
They were better dressed than she, they kept an 
establishment quite beyond her in elegance of 
appointments, and they knew so many of the 
little things with "which it is a comfort to be 
familiar. 

Yet all this did not atone, and her keen sensi¬ 
bilities were often wounded by the tacit refusal to 
extend to them the same consideration accorded 
to herself. A woman more selfish would have 
taken the hint, and dropped them; but she could 
not find that in her heart. It looked like the 
ingratitude she had so often railed against in 
country people transplanted to the light frivolities 
of town. 

She was a frequent and an informal caller at the 
Haberly home, and both the young ladies, with 
their polished brother, had the most cordial entree 
to her house. And, after a time, the more 
severely she felt the ostracism of her friends, the 
more closely did she draw to them. She even 
saw many things about them that could grate 
upon fineness and propriety, yet glossed the little 
delinquencies and took no alarm. That she walked 


146 


AN INDIANA MAN. 


a little closer to John Haberly in the moonlight 
stroll, which often took the five from home, was 
part of this retreat from a world that did not 
understand him. It was a greater part—perhaps 
the perfect work—of that accomplished man; but 
of this she took no sensible account until, the cam¬ 
paign being fairly opened, she found she must 
choose between her father’s sturdy right and 
this man’s suave diplomacy; for Wesley was in 
the field with the vigor of an old campaigner, and 
the triumphant tread of a victor. Her heart was 
with her father, but not—so much was she changed 
—with his work. And all of her—heart, soul and 
sense of blessedness—was with this younger man. 

There had been a great temperance meeting in 
Fairview. It was an off year, and the lines of 
party were not so rigidly drawn. Hundreds had 
listened to the speeches, and gone away wondering 
why the truth should not prevail. They were 
wondering still more why Wesley Grant dared 
stand up there before that audience, and thunder 
his denunciation against the very ring which had 
made his son a sheriff. They wondered most at 
his familiarity with men and methods, with schemes 
and trades and strange results. They were 
amazed that he dared to state the whole truth in 
such an entirely open manner, and did not hesitate 
to prophesy that he would meet with trouble. 



A PATRIOTS GOSPEL. 


147 


The burden of his speech was current matter 
for discussion before the day was over. Yet he 
got into his buggy and drove home quite undis¬ 
turbed by the angry comment of the gang. 

And they were angry. Argument like that 
from a man like that would lose them the legisla¬ 
tive ticket, sure. It was what they might have 
expected from him—the ungrateful old traitor— 
they said. He must be stopped some way. 
Haberly and Ellet were talking about it in the 
club that night, before the regular habitues arrived. 
“ The Club ” was the large room back of the 
prosecuting attorney’s office; and it was frequented 
every night by a number of well-dressed gentle¬ 
men who were traveling very rapidly, and not in 
the safest direction. 

“You better go out and see the old man to¬ 
morrow, Ellet. Get him to quit this infernal fool¬ 
ishness. There is nothing in it for him; make him 
see that. And there is everything in it to harm 
us. We will have trouble enough electing our 
men as it is. The votes he can control will just 
simply ruin us.” 

Ellet would not have believed, two years before, 
that any man could safely designate as “ infernal 
foolishness” anythingthat Wesley Grant did; but 
to-night he passively indorsed that valuation placed 
upon it. He doubted, though, his ability to change 


148 


AN INDIANA MAN. 


his father to any great extent. He stood in a 
good deal of awe of that old Trojan. There was 
much in the father there was not in. the son, and 
the latter knew it. However, he promised to 
drive out early to-morrow and attend service at 
the Pretty Lake church, eating dinner at the 
homestead, and doing what missionary work he 
could while there. 

Then he impaled a very short fragment of cigar 
on the point of his penknife, and pursued his 
smoking. The other men came in shortly, and 
attention was transferred from the political out¬ 
look to the careful scrutiny of cards, in blocks of 
five. The gang was gambling. 

John Haberly had always been very successful 
at these meetings. Some people said it made up 
the half of his income. 

Ellet Grant walked into the old church the next 
day with the first headache he ever remembered 
carrying there. He shook hands cordially, yet 
modestly, with a number of men and women, and 
then handed Miss Haberly to a seat in the woman 
side of the room, deferring to the rural custom of 
separating the sexes. For himself, he pushed 
along to the open window, and filled the pauses 
in the service by looking out at the placid lake, 
and honestly wishing from the bottom of his 
heart that he could go back to the time when his 


A PATRIOTS GOSPEL. 


149 


thoughts were light as the sunbeams that danced 
in the air over there by the sands. Yonder were 
the crumbling logs of the old pen where the sheep 
were kept when they came for the annual wash¬ 
ing, just before the time to shear. A little farther 
was a spring, deep and clear and cold and grate¬ 
ful. Farther still was the swimming hole, and 
his heart gave a throb as he thought of the cool, 
delicious sensation, that flight through the air, 
that plunge, used to yield him. A little nearer 
was the shallow bottom, where scores and scores 
had walked down to holy baptism, their hearts as 
pure as the glistening water that made a pathway 
for the setting sun. 

All that was joyful, and all that was tearful in 
his boy life, had passed within hearing of this 
cliff-bound lake. 

Wesley Grant gave his son and the young lady 
his customary cordial greeting, but Ellet could 
see from the start his mission here was a failure. 
The old man seemed a very Gibraltar of purpose. 
At dinner the commonest things were talked of. 
Mother missed Esther, and did not understand 
why she had not come home. Ellet’s explanation 
that his sister had driven with Haberly to Fayette 
for the day was not entirely satisfying. Alice 
- was lonesome, and promised herself a visit in 
town. 


150 


AN INDIANA MAN. 


After dinner Ellet and his father sat on the 
front porch and talked. The young man tried to 
begin on a strain somewhat in harmony with what 
he knew the boys were saying in town. He 
stumbled a little at first, but as Wesley let him go 
without contradiction,or even interruption, he grew 
surer of his ground, and talked ver}/ plainly. But 
his castle of dictation crumbled into the olden con¬ 
dition of boyish respect when his father asked him: 
“ Who told you to say that?” 

“Well, no one in particular; but it is the way 
we all feel about it; and—” 

“Unfortunately, I cannot help how you feel. If 
I could, you might feel better.” Ellet’s conscience 
caught that thrust. “You and I need no false 
assumption between us. We know each other, 
and I know a good many more things than you 
think I do. They are getting you down, Ellet; 
and I never thought you were weak enough to let 
them. There is something so wrong in that sys¬ 
tem in town that it must be revolutionized. It is 
not simply a slimy monster; washing won’t help 
it. It is a deadly monster; it must be killed. I 
am going to live to see the day when not a drop 
of grog is sold in Fairview.” 

“You’ll never do it, father.” 

“Should I not? Is it not right? Isn’t it a thing 
to be desired?” 


A PATRIOTS GOSPEL . 


151 


“Yes, vastly. But you could never enforce that 
sort of a law, even if you had it made; and you 
can’t make it. You can’t carry elections. It takes 
money and manipulation. You won’t use money, 
and you can’t manipulate.” 

“ Ellet, a man don’t have to buy what he already 
owns. Our men will vote our way because they 
really want to. You couldn’t hire or scare them 
to do anything else. A very dangerous slave is 
the freeman who sells his suffrage. But he is 
safety beside the man who buys it. That is sim¬ 
ply horrible. It rocks the very foundation stones 
of freedom. You have no right to buy one ballot. 
It is worse than gun, or knife, or fagot. Scare 
him, abuse him, wound him, and he will rise some 
day to defy you—if he has a drop of the blood of 
a freeman in his veins. But buy him, and you 
debauch him forever. We must get back to first 
principles, or we are a lost nation. Rum rule 
must go down, or we go down. Ellet, there will 
be a law made some day that will say ‘ Hands off! 
to you people. It will make it a penitentiary 
offense to buy a single ballot. Your Johns anu 
your Charleys and all the rest of the pestilent 
brood will have to keep their distance, arm 
will not be allowed to see whether the men 
they have bought are delivering the goods or 
not. They will have to stand aside, and see 


152 


AN INDIANA MAN. 


voters vote as they will. That ends corrup¬ 
tion.” 

“ ° h > no ^ won’t. I’ve heard of that kind of a 
law, and whenever they pass that sort of a thing 
the fellows that now get in their work at the polls 
will simply get the cattle drunk, and keep them 
from voting at all. They will hire them to stay 
away all day. It will be cheaper than it is now, 
and just as effective.” 

Then, Ellet, in the name of a race in danger, 
can you see any other way out than the abolition 
of the drink evil? If this is true, must we not go 
to the bottom, and root out the tree in the branches 
of which your Ringers, and your Steeles, and 
your Sauterns flourish? Don’t you see what it is 
doing?” 

“ yes; but surely you know there is not 
enough public sentiment now to endorse such a 
radical course.” 

“ That’s the language of a traitor, Ellet. Put it 
back into the mouth of the man who taught it to 
you. You know I am right, yet you oppose me. 
You want what I want, yet you work against me. 
You talk of a lack of public sentiment, yet you 
help to weaken what public sentiment there is. 
Either your words or your actions convict you of 
insincerity. Put yourself on my side—on the side 
you admit is right—and then the sentiment will 


A PATRIOTS GOSPEL. 


153 


be that much stronger. Why do men hold so 
close to what they know is wrong? Why do they 
pretend to wish for better things when they 
encourage worse things? Do they think they 
deceive anybody? Actions speak louder than 
words. What they work for, they want.” 

“ Oh, they don’t try to deceive anybody. They 
are as much opposed to drunkenness as you are; 
but they are in favor of saloons, as things are now, 
and until people get educated up to better things. 
Saloons make business. Where there are none, 
there is no trade. If no liquor were sold in Fair- 
view I kno.w lots of men who wouldn’t go there 
twice a year. They would patronize some place 
where they could get a drink when they wanted 
it. But, any way, father; about this campaign 
work of yours.” 

“Now, never you mind about this campaign 
work of mine. You go back to John Haberly, 
and Bill Sims, and Sam Sautern, and all the rest, 
and tell them I am out to stay. I am one of a 
thousand men who are working day and night for 
the legislature—and we are going to get it. Mark 
my word, we will pass a law making it a felony 
to buy, sell or give away one drop of liquor—as a 
beverage.” 

«Oh, that kind of a law would be -unconstitu¬ 
tional. The whisky men would kill it in no time. 


154 


AN INDIANA MAN. 


They would have a test case moved to the top of 
the Supreme Court docket—everything else there 
might wait—and they would get a decision that 
would put your cause back twenty years.” 

“Then why don’t your fellows let me alone? 
They know that is the kind of a law I am after, 
and they have known it from the start. If it is 
what they want, too, why are they riding all night, 
and spending money like the wind, and drugging 
this whole State with alcohol—just to beat us? 
They don’t want it; but we will have it; and all 
the scheming, and swilling and corruption of the 
gang cannot stop it. God pity me that I am say¬ 
ing this to my own son! God send I shall never 
have worse to say to him!” 

He had risen. At the start the old man’s frame 
was tense with energy. At the last his eyes were 
swimming in tears, and he turned away to hide 
the weakness. 

This was not the kind of a Sunday afternoon 
Ellet remembered at the farm. He tried to shake 
off the feeling of strangeness and distance which 
chilled and separated him from that perfect com¬ 
fort of the past. He walked through the rooms, 
noted the little changes, begged Alice to play, and 
then left before she had finished. He looked at the 
stock, and so came at last to the barn. The 
floors were clean, the mows were full. The fra- 


A PATRIOTS GOSPEL. 


155 


grance and quiet of harvests completed filled the 
wide walls with restfulness. Here in the old tem¬ 
ple of a boy’s abandon, he caught the scents that 
are ever the same, and—man as he was— 
bowed his head in silent, tearless, choking 
anguish. 

After that, resentment. He brought out his 
horses, and began hitching them to the buggy. 
He had driven up in front of the house before they 
knew he intended leaving. Then Miss Haberly 
bustled around with the turmoil of a small woman, 
and made her adieux. Alice kissed her great, 
strong brother good-bye, and searched in his face 
for the demon that had driven the angels from the 
homestead. 

She found it. 

“Ellet,” said Wesley, coming around the house 
from the farther porch, “ going home?” 

“ Yes; it will be sundown by the time we are 
there. Come in when you can. Good-bye.” 

“ Good-bye. But, Ellet. Don’t lay up what I 
say as said against you; it’s only against your 
weak and suicidal doctrine. But don’t let any of 
the fellows flatter themselves that this thing will 
blow over by election time. I give you fair warn¬ 
ing. It’s our legislature. We will have the 
law, or there won’t be a per diem bill passed 
in ten years.” 


156 


AN INDIANA MAN . 


“ All right, father,” replied the young man, and 
he thought what a measureless gulf there was 
between his broader plane and the narrow con¬ 
fines of all one-ideaed men. 


CHAPTER XVIII. 


A NIGHT WITH THE BOYS. 

Esther and Haberly had not yet reached home 
when Ellet returned. He went to the restaurant 
for supper, and then dropped into the saloon, to 
see if any one was there. He found a few of the 
boys, and they tempered all news exchanges with 
drinks at the bar. He could not report his father 
won over to the right, and found—as he had 
anticipated—that he must range himself in antag¬ 
onism to the patriarch. That night he heard 
harder things said of old Wesley Grant than a 
year ago he would have thought any man would 
dare say of him in any presence—not counting 
his own. The boys were very angry. They 
were stout in the denial of strength to the hated 
movement, but the very warmth of their assertion 
belied its sincerity. Finally, they went up stairs, 
where Brubaker and Tom Fisher and some others 
were deeply hidden in cigar smoke and draw poker. 

“ Set in, Ellet,” said Brubaker, cordially. “ May¬ 
be you’ll change my luck.” And he carelessly 
fingered a diminished stack of celluloid chips. 

157 


158 


AN INDIANA MAN. 


The day had fitted Ellet for just such a diver- 
sion. The disappointing visit to the homestead, 

the spirit of unnatural antagonism awakened there 

the tacit acknowledgement of his own comradery 
with baseness, and something of the loosening of 
a bonds—filial, fraternal and patriotic—combined 
to change him from what he had been to what he 
dreaded being. Then, the liquor which other 
men could absorb without affecting their usual 
moods and actions, had the effect of numbing one 
side of his nature while it roused another to dan¬ 
gerous alertness. 


He took a place at the table, and invested gen¬ 
erously. For half an hour the smoky goddess 
smiled upon him, and he drew rare pleasure from 
the groans that marked his winning from these 
men. He wanted to inflict suffering. There was 
no mercy in his betting. He took Tom Fisher’s 
last dollar, and brutally refused to loan him a 
dime. He was cross and crabbed with the play¬ 
ers, and threw down his winning cards with the 
air of one who could crush them, and would do 
it—glorying. 

He plunged from one success to another as the 
hours sped by, meeting the wilder play of Bru- 
baker and ^autern till his hour of triumph had 
passed. Then he began losing. Had he waited 
for morning with half the patience they had 


A NIGHT WITH THE BOYS. 


159 


waited for luck, he might not have -fallen. But 
as the hour hand slowly fell from vertical to hori¬ 
zontal, then dipped to pendant, Ellet Grant’s win¬ 
nings and ten times their amount beside were 
scattered in wild, reckless, unskilled struggles. 

He left the room at daylight, badly compro¬ 
mised, and scarcely able to conceive the disaster 
that had settled upon him. He walked out into 
the clear air, pushed back his hat to cool his fore¬ 
head, and went away wondering how so stupen¬ 
dous a fall had been possible. His heart ached 
that the man he had been could do a thing so vile. 
He kept his thoughts from those who had despoiled 
him. Low as they were, was he any better? 

“ Sheriff Grant, good-morning.” 

It was the hearty, deep-toned greeting of Elder 
Kimball, the preacher, and it marked a severer 
phase of his abasement. Would that man speak 
to him if the work of the last night were in view? 

Ah, was it not in view? Did not all these peo¬ 
ple—early movers in an honest day—did not they 
know? Could not they see it on his face, in his 
clothes, through his manner? Was he able to 
disguise it? Had not that one and this one glanced 
at him in the most chilling of manners? 

“ Go home, Ellet,” he said to himself, bitterly. 
Then he tried to save what little was left. They 
should never do that with him again. Was not 


160 


AN INDIANA MAN. 


he strong enough? Had not he always been bet¬ 
ter than they ? He would not—he would not play 
one more time. 

So he dragged a weary frame and a heavy 
heart over his threshold. Esther was not in the 
house. She had not been there all night. At 
first he wondered where she was, then he wel¬ 
comed the freedom her absence gave to him to go 
to his room and sleep. He lay on the bed a long 
time, picturing the scenes of that awful game, and 
vowing eternal abstinence hereafter. Hands of 
cards drifted past his wide, staring, smarting eyes, 
like visions sent to haunt him. Again in fancy he 
had them in his power, and recouped his losses, 
only sinking to sleep at last from absolute exhaus¬ 
tion. 

Late in the afternoon he roused, a headache 
remaining to link this wasted day with last night’s 
excesses. As he dressed himself his load seemed 
lighter than in the morning. He was more 
indifferent or more hopeful — he hardly knew 
which. But surely there was some way out. He 
was awake now, and at himself; he knew there 
was plain sailing ahead, after all. He had always 
found some resource effective. He never had 
been compelled to suffer. He would not now. He 
had always been a leader among men, and he was 
resolved to so continue. 


A NIGHT WITH THE BOYS . 


161 


Esther was busy in the sewing-room when he 
went down stairs. 

“Where were you last night?” was his 
greeting. 

“Well, where were you?” was her response. 

Ellet looked at his sister angrily. Some 
unfamiliar demon in him stirred to strike her. He 
checked the impulse, while a wave of hot blood 
suffused his face and neck. It shamed him, and 
he ate in silence the meal she had prepared, grop¬ 
ing in a dull brain for some weapon with which to 
conquer the ascendancy. Something like cool 
defiance in the girl humbled him, and dulled the 
edge of his resentment. Something like abandon 
in her manner startled him. 

But he was still more humbled, still more star¬ 
tled, when he went down street and found the 
story of his losses had already cheered the ears of 
all the gossips in town. Half a dozen men who 
never played dropped hints which showed the 
facts were public property. Sautern stood, aproned 
and smiling, in his door. He had been at business 
all day. Brubaker was tilting back in a chair 
before the drug store, in his habitual fashion. 
They bowed and spoke, but he could not 
meet their eyes; they knew too much. Yet 
they did not know more than all these other 
men. 


162 


AN INDIANA MAN. 


Ellet went to the office, and found he had been 
needed badly. He knew he was not strong 
enough to be defiant. He must explain. God 
pity the man who has to apologize! 

He told them he had spent the day at his 
father’s place, and had just arrived in town. 

“But I saw you put up your horses at sundown 
last night,” said an indignant tax-payer. “I know 
where you were, and shall make it my business 
that others know.” 

He would not be silenced, and went away loud 
in his wrathful threatenings. Ellet’s only hope 
was that he would meet some of the boys, who, 
for the sake of the party, would induce him to 
keep still. 

A deputy had made some collections, and could 
show no record of the fact. The litigant had been 
notified to come in and settle. He came with his 
receipt, and when he had fixed the error in the 
sheriff’s office, made bold to tell Ellet he was done 
voting for him. 

“You’ve got a pack of worthless rascals about 
you,” he said, angrily. “I thought you was a 
model man, Grant, when you went in; thought 
you was one of my kind, and lots of—” 

“Well, I am not one of your kind,” shouted the 
sheriff. “Thank God for that.” And the terri¬ 
fied countryman went away with very slender 


A NIGHT WITH THE BOYS. 


163 


faith in anything that looked like a county officer. 
“Something spoils ’em,” he mused, as he drove 
home through the dust. 

But the complaint was deserved, and Ellet knew 
it. He was angry with the deputy for the over¬ 
sight, but felt instinctively he dared not now say 
to him all that he wished. The deputy was too 
well backed. 

Taken altogether, the day was too much for 
him. He stopped in at Ringer’s after the office 
was closed, and tried to console himself with a 
drink. Charley, the worker, was there with some 
of the boys. 

“Thought you were going to build fence for 
Sims to-day,” remarked Ellet. 

“Naw,” said Charley; “didn’t feel like it this 
morning. Sims aint in no hurry, no way. I’ll 
begin to-morrow, if the boys don’t go fishing; and 
Ellet, when I do build that fence he’ll have a 
hummer. I can build more fence in a day, and 
build it straighter, than ary other man in Fairview 
County.” 

“What are you going to take, Charley?” asked 
Ellet. In all the worker’s boasting there was an 
undercurrent of pleading in a different tongue, 
which ran this way: “Ask me to drink. Ask me 
to drink. Ask me to drink.” Ellet could no more 
disregard it than he could the man’s presence. 


164 


AN INDIANA MAN. 


And when Charley drank, the boys drank. It 
made quite a wreck of the bill the sheriff threw 
down. Ringer saw that, and, remembering last 
night, rather sympathized with Ellet. Ringer 
knew all about the escapade in the gambling room, 
and was not a man to steel his heart against suffer¬ 
ing. He would be generous, and bestow a favor 
on a losing man. 

“Have one with me,” he said. 


CHAPTER XIX. 


BEYOND ALL PARDON. 

As he neared his house, Ellet saw his mother’s 
saddle horse at his gate. He did not want to 
meet her, yet he must. Mrs. Grant met him at 
the side door, and took his hand between her own 
hard yet gentle palms. She was a very fountain 
of kindness, and she loved so to comfort and caress 
her children. She touched his face, and studied 
him sharply, while her tongue was busy with 
pleasant inquiries. 

“You look so worried, dear. Father was too 
hard with you yesterday, but he doesn’t mean to 
be. He loves you, Ellet. And you have fever, 
too; and your' breath is bad.” This without a 
thought of probing. “You must do something, 
or you will both be sick. See Esther, too. She 
isn’t well. You don’t take care of her. Why, 
we thought what a great thing it was going to 
when you were sheriff and lived in town, and 
Esther kept house for you. Do you remember—” 
“Mother, for mercy’s sake, hush!” cried her 
tortured son, almost beside himself. It was the 

W5 


166 


AN INDIANA MAN . 


last addition to the crushing burden whose harass¬ 
ing fragments had worn quite to the quick. 

“Why, Ellet,” says the mother, not in a harsher 
but in a gently protesting tone, “do I bother you? 
Have I said something to wound you?” Then 
the dignity of maternity tempered a little the 
boundless charity, and endless self-forgetfulness. 
“Maybe you need a word or two. Let mother 
show you where—” 

“ I will not stand it. I tell you to be still. I 
am not a child.” 

“No, you are a man. If you were a child I 
could not blame you when your plain duty was 
neglected. You are a man and must face these 
things. No one will be kinder than your mother 
in telling you the truth; but you must hear it. 
Where were you, and where was your sister 
last—” 

“ Mother, I swear to God if you don’t stop I 
will put you out of my house. What possesses 
you to go in this way? What do you mean?” 

“I mean that it is high time you faced the truth. 
Listen, Ellet. This can’t go on. Look where 
you are standing. See where you cam$ from. 
See where you both are going. Remember, it is 
not you alone who stands or falls, but your sister—” 

He had been moving about the room swiftly, 
burning with suppressed anger, pierced with the 


BEYOND ALL PARDON. 


167 


consciousness of a wrong so great he was only 
dimly beginning to realize it. As she persisted 
with a mother’s freedom, yet with a mother’s 
tenderness, even to the last, it seemed a whip of 
scorpions had stung his flesh in each word she 
uttered. So exasperating was her perfect fear¬ 
lessness, her disregard of his authority, that at the 
final charge of trusts betrayed, he sprang forward 
and grasped her shoulder roughly. 

The good woman was not facing him at the 
moment, for he had passed behind her in his caged 
pacing about the floor. But the instant the hand 
alighted his mother started and turned upon him 
such a countenance as few sons—pray God ever 
see. She did not flinch or try to escape him. 
She only met his eyes, and blazed the love that 
spanned his thirty years, clear back of birth, 
straight in the face so touched and marred by 
passion. Esther ran weeping from the room, and 
for a moment this tableau rested. 

But some devil hot from hell whispered, “ You 
are a man. You must be respected.” And he 
lifted his threatening finger before his mother’s face, 
and said, stooping forward in rage and warning. 

“Now, stop!” He was livid with passion and 

strong drink. , . , . 

« You struck me, Ellet,” she said, quite breath- 

lessly. 


168 


AN INDIANA MAN. 


He made no response, and she turned from him 
slowly, amazement melting again to mother love, 
her startled eyes softening to the tenderness that 
came so straight from the heart. She found her 
wraps, tied the black bonnet on over the smooth 
gray hairs, then went from the house alone and 
silently. Without assistance she led her pony to 
the block, without assistance she mounted him, 
and without one sign of penitence from the man 
who was carrying her flesh and blood—aye, and 
her heavy heart—down to ruin with him, she rode 
slowly away. 

She rode slowly away, sitting upright and weep¬ 
ing silently as the first miles were passed, then 
sobbing and clinging to the saddle horns as the way 
grew longer, then stopping and dismounting finally, 
too weak to keep her seat. Heaven was kind to her, 
and no one came that way. She sat by the road¬ 
side, near her wondering beast, and poured out her 
cruel load of sorrows. With them went the godlike 
prayer that though this cup might not pass by, 
some touch of grace might find a blessing in it. 

She could not mount again, and walked home 
wearily. 

When Esther returned the room was empty. 
Ellet had gone down town. He would teach her 
a lesson, too. He had not meant to touch his 
mother, but now that it was done, he would not 


BEYOND ALL PARDON. 


169 


be so unmanly as to show a sign of relenting. He 
tried to contend he was not to blame. Any man 
would be justified in doing the same thing under 
the same circumstances. 

But it was not easy. Boy and man, he had never 
lacked loving. Never once had a hand been raised 
against him, however perverse, however heartless 
his youthful wrongs might be. Never once had 
he felt the weight of a finger in punishment, 
nor ever seen the brow contract in threatenings. 
Gentleness, kindness, patience had been the cords 
that braided, bound, the family as one. Not a 
reasonable wish had ever gone ungratified in all 
these years. Not an hour of pain nor a day of 
disappointment, but tenderness and sympathy had 
lightened the burden and hastened relief. And 
he had not been insensible to all this. 

Ellet had dwelt in such good-fellowship with 
father, mother and sisters. They were comrades 
with him, strengthened by his power and charmed 
by his grace. He had been a sort of centre about 
which all willingly revolved, yet had been noble 
enough to never for an instant arrogate dominance. 
For all their goodness he knew he had given a 
man’s most rich return—he had been worthy of it. 
Never till now, when all the world seemed out of 
joint, had one shadow come between him and his 
kindred. 


170 


AN INDIANA MAN. 


And it was bitter. As the exhilarated brain 
became a dull, aching brain, that instant in his 
sitting room swelled to centuries of sin, which 
nothing could atone. His own mother? Did 
this hand touch mother? She who had— 

Here, this was madding. He must tide it over 
some way. More liquor would do it. No, liquor 
had caused this very thing. What matter? He 
must forget it now or go crazy. After awhile— 
to-morrow—any time — he could get himself 
together, and think this out. But now— 

“Jap, give me a little rye.” 

Jap complied, and then mentally weighed the 
man before him. 

“At first they own Sautern; in the middle it’s a 
stand-off; at the end, Sautern owns them. Ellet’s 
about ready to deed himself over, and it’s a little 
early, too.” 


CHAPTER XX. 


AFTER THAT-THE DELUGE. 

The campaign was drawing to a close. It had 
been an unusually warm one, considering that no 
national question was at issue. All over the State 
the Prohibitionists had been very active, and as 
the final day drew closer they became jubilant. 
An “off year” furnished them the best chance to 
capture the legislature; and, the law once enacted, 
they had abiding faith in its permanence and 
enforcement. The men against them had watched 
the contest with frown and threat; with rising 
rage as the spirits of the crusaders were lifted up, 
until here in the last fortnight, when the reports 
from other counties showed the probable triumph 
of the new creed, nothing short of curses and 
violence could adequately express their disappro- 
bation. 

The Republican was in the fight with all the 
editor’s energy and enthusiasm. Thompson had 

had his way with Poole, and, his friend elected, had 

clambered back into the party fold with becoming 
meekness. He was still a stickler for what he 

171 


172 


AN INDIANA MAN. 


considered his position, and declined with thanks 
all of Sims’ or Sautern’s editorial ravings. Then 
he squared himself by belaboring an offender with 
all their zest, and in language a great deal bet¬ 
ter than they could have used. He was still good 
friends with Poole; and, for that matter, Poole 
seemed to fraternize rather amiably with all the 
old crowd. He chaffed them about their defeat 
two years ago, and they cursed him in round 
terms—which meant no offense, and were easily 
forgiven. He threatened them with a severer 
calamity this fall, and they told him to make 
hay while the sun shone; it would be his last 
chance. 

“You aint enforced no law,” said Sims, “and 
when we down you this fall you will be as flat as 
a pancake. We know you, Poole and we won’t 
have you. And the Prohibs know you, and they 
will be done with you, too. What you going at, 
anyhow, when this term is over?” 

“ Going to begin on my next term,” replied the 
prosecutor, stoutly. “ I have enforced no new law 
because you fellows bought up the legislature, 
and did not give us any to enforce. But I have 
socked four convictions home under the old law, 
and that is as much as you want. The Prohibs 
know I am safe enough. Don’t you worry about 
their throwing me over.” 


AFTER THAT—THE DELUGE. 


173 


“ Suppose we buy up the legislature this year, 
too,” suggested Haberly. 

“ Much obliged for the concession that it will be 
ours to sell. But, John, I don’t think you can do 
it. I figure that there will be a majority in the 
house pledged to a prohibitory law. You 
can’t beat that, any way you work. Then there 
will be seven more—two from Allen County, and 
one each from Vigo, Morgan, Fairview, Porter 
and Posey—who will be elected by the Prohibs 
against straight party candidates. That will make 
a pretty steep job for your legislative commission 
men and dealers in majorities. In this county the 
Prohibs will elect all they are after—me and the 
representative. No, mark my word, John, there 
will be a good majority pledged for prohibition.” 

“If it wasn’t for old Wesley Grant,” sighed 
Sims, dejectedly. “ That man is the backbone of 
the whole darned fight in this State. He goes every¬ 
where. They call for him in every town from 
South Bend to Mt. Vernon, and from Richmond 
to Terre Haute. The old traitor seems to have 
set the whole State ablaze with his foolishness. 
And wherever he goes he makes heaps of votes 
agin us.” 

“ Well, he won’t make no more,” said Sautern 
confidently. Poole and all the rest looked up at 
the oracle. “ He won’t make no more votes, nor 


174 


AN INDIANA MAN. 


no more speeches. I tell you that,” said the big 
man, and he lifted his huge frame upright, and 
sauntered with the air of an emperor at ease over 
to his bar room. 

“ What’s Sautern got?” asked Sims. 

“ Something on the sheriff, I am afraid,” replied 
Haberly. “ I have tried my best to keep Ellet 
out of that man’s way, but he just goes back there 
in spite of me. He is making a wreck of himself. 
In another year he will be fit for an asylum—and 
a poor-house, too—if he keeps on.” 

The manager read some undercurrent of ill 
omen in Sautern’s words, and, when the latter had 
gone some minutes, rose and followed him across 
the street. 

“ I’ll bet a hundred dollars they don’t stop old 
Wesley,” said Poole. 

“ I’ll have to take you,” said Brubaker. 

Over at the saloon Haberly found Sautern 
enjoying a fresh cigar, and sitting in the cool 
breeze at the back window. 

“ What is it about Wesley Grant?” he asked 
directly, though he let his eyes wander carelessly 
out across the river, toward the pretty home of 
the sheriff. 

“Well, it’s enough,” vouchsafed the saloon 
keeper. 

“How are you going to try and stop him?” 


AFTER THAT—THE DELUGE. 


175 


“Well, I’ll stop him.” 

It took an hour of questioning to bring from 
Sautern the story he wished to tell, and intended 
telling, yet which he felt the greatest disinclination 
to giving up as soon as he found some man who 
wanted to hear it. 

Ellet had been unfit for duty three several 
times, a week at a time. Men said he was sick, 
but all Fairview knew he was drunk. He had 
been gambling beyond all rules of prudence, and 
had lost more than he owned. Uncle Dave 
Edwards, who was on the sheriff’s bond, had been 
in town twice to see about it, and would come 
again to-morrow, to ask release. Either Ellet 
must fix things up—which he could not do—or 
they would take the office from him. If they 
went through his books to-day^ they would find 
him defaulter for thousands. 

Haberly was commissioned to see Wesley when 
he arrived, and put the facts before him. 

The train rolled up to the station with that bell¬ 
ringing and whistle-blowing which Indiana laws 
had conjured into one unceasing pandemonium. 
The brakemen and conductor stepped down 
before the cars stopped, with that jaunty air they 
affect in the country, and the idle crowd gathered 
a little closer to see who arrived and who 
departed. 


176 


AN INDIANA MAN. 


First among the passengers to set foot on the 
Fairview platform was Wesley Grant. His white 
hairs were crowned with a broad slouch hat; his 
gray clothes were the garments of a man of means 
and importance; his grip was the ammunition 
wagon of a tireless campaigner. He turned from 
the car without hesitation, and started swiftly up 
town. John Haberly overtook him. 

“Helloa, Wesley,” he said, cordially, “where 
have you been?” 

Now, Wesley Grant had lived a life of stern 
sincerity for so long that any simulation was dis¬ 
tasteful to him. He thought he had reason 
enough for distrusting John Haberly, and he did 
distrust him. He did not want to fraternize with 
him, and he did not want to pretend he did. This 
campaign had taught him to meet, face to face, 
apologists for the darkest of earth’s damnations, 
yet to preserve before them the unruffled front of 
one who can conserve his powers. So he turned, 
met the frank gaze of the dexterous manager, and 
replied: 

“ I have been at work preparing for a Prohibi¬ 
tion legislature, John.” 

“Are you going to elect it?” 

“We will.” This with a ringing certainty, and 
a lighting smile that showed how sweet was the 
anticipation of victory. 


AFTER THAT—THE DELXJOE . 


177 


“ Wesley, come up here into my office. I want 
to talk with you about a matter of importance to 
me, but of more importance to Ellet and yourself.” 
Haberly had paused at the foot of his stairs, and 
as Wesley halted near him the two men fronted 
squarely. There was warning in the manager’s 
eyes, but the glance was met and conquered by 
the older man’s stern rectitude. 

“John, I will not go up into your office. If you 
or any of your crowd have something to say to 
me, you must say it in public. I will have no 
misunderstanding about my relations with the 
gang.” 

All the way up town men had passed them, had 
pressed up to shake old Wesley’s hand or say a 
word of greeting or encouragement. While these 
two stood here quite a group surrounded them, 
some to welcome a leader returned, others to 
stand and observe them. 

“It is too public a place,” said Haberly, with 
something like distress in his voice. “What I 
have to say will be better said in private.” He 
waited. Old Wesley’s smile of strength and con¬ 
fidence vanished. His reception at his own town, 
after successes at many others, had gratified him. 
The tone of John Haberly’s warning had banished 
it all. Yet he was a Spartan. He knew his hands 
were clean, and all the light of all the universe 


178 


AN INDIANA MAN. 


might be turned upon them. It could disclose no 
shame. 

“Speak out, John. If you are going to ask me 
to name my price for silence, say so. If you are 
going to threaten me, let that be public, too. I 
cannot afford, and my party cannot afford, to have 
anything done in the dark. Speak out.” 

Haberly hesitated. 

“Pick out any three good, trusty men,” he said 
at last, just as the veteran showed by his attitude 
that the conference was at an end; “pick them 
out, and come up. I cannot tell you here.” 

The old man grew paler. Evidently, affairs 
were serious. But he was resolute, and through 
the dread of something, not all unexpected, he 
forced a smile to his lips and replied, shaking his 
head as one not easily deceived: 

“You cannot compromise me, Haberly. I will 
not go up in your office. I have no business there. 
If you have anything to say to me, come to Poole’s 
office. I will be there for an hour. But you better 
bring a friend, for I will bring one. We want to 
understand each other.” 

Half an hour later the old man mounted the 
creaking steps, followed by two friends whom he 
could trust. He was gay with bits of cheer from 
the work in other fields, and filled to exuberance 
with a nervous energy. But he felt as he lifted 


AFTER THAT—THE DELUGE. 


179 


one foot above the other that he was climbing to 
doom. It abated not a whit of the man’s courage 
or unquailing front, but in his heart he found the 
picture of a man condemned, mounting the rough 
stairway to strangulation. He thought of the 
bravado some of them had shown, and in the 
darkness of this moment he could find no nobler 
sense to buoy up his tortured spirit. The exer¬ 
tion made his heart beat quicker, and a flitting 
pain there came to warn him. He read in that 
instant of sharp suffering what the end would be; 
and in that consummation, which was far lighter 
than the way that lay between, he waked the forces 
that he needed now. 

“I’ll die game,” he muttered, and threw back 
his shoulders as he struggled for air; he tossed 
his hands far apart, as if the proof that shackles 
were not on them was needed, and was grateful. 

Poole placed chairs for his visitors. Haberly 
was already there with Vernon, one of the bonds¬ 
men, and with Petcher, Uncle Dave Edwards’ 
attorney. 

“Well, John,” said Wesley, “what do you want 
to say?” 

“It aint an easy thing,” began the politician, but 
he was interrupted. 

“ I am not looking for easy things. Don’t spare 
me, if you can bear it.” 


180 


AN INDIANA MAN. 


The younger man was stung to lay aside all 
courtesy. Something in his conscience hardened 
him toward that white-haired veteran. We are 
told that nothing so adds to the anger one feels 
toward a man as the recollection that one has 
injured him. 

“Ellet is short in his accounts.” 

“ Well, which of you got the money?” 

“And his bondsmen want to get out. Unless 
the books are squared Ellet will be arrested.” 

“How much does he lack?” 

“It will take four thousand dollars to settle 
everything without prosecution. Then he must 
resign.” 

“Is that all you want to say?” 

“Not quite. You can save the office to him, 
after his shortage is fixed up, and do it easily.” 

“ How?” 

“Stay at home till after election.” 

“Will that be enough?” 

“You might write a letter, declaring against 
certain candidates that the Prohibs are running; 
but go to no more meetings, make no more 
speeches, and promise your vote for the straight 
nominees. After that—” 

“The deluge!” exclaimed the farmer, con¬ 
temptuously. “ Say, John, you fellows are after 
the wrong man, You cannot dictate one thing to 


AFTER THAT—THE DELUGE. 


181 


me. I am too old. You are too corrupt. Poole, 
write me a power of attorney. I have not half 
that amount on hand, but I give you full authority 
to collect, draw what I have on deposit, and mort¬ 
gage or sell the Pretty Lake farm to raise all that 
is needed. If it comes to that, John, I can settle 
the shortages of your whole gang—shortages that 
you always cover up if the rascal remains 
useful.” 

There was a tinge of boasting in the taunt. He 
seemed to need some little brutality in this bitter 
struggle. 

“Now, Poole”—he had risen after signing the 
paper—“stand between the boy and all danger. 
Save me all you can, but—save him first, Poole.” 

That was the certain strain of weakness. Voice 
and manner published his feelings. He turned 
quickly, and was half way to the door when 
Haberly called out: 

“How about keeping him in office? How about 
you helping us in the election?” 

“Keep him in office, or put him out, John. Do 
just as you like. I am saying, and every dollar I 
own is saying, that no child of mine shall be dis¬ 
honored while I can prevent it. But you can get 
nothing more from me. Only this”—and he turned 
swiftly and with flashing eyes on the trio—“I’ll 
double my efforts to down the ring. If this is my 


182 


AN INDIANA MAN. 


last year on earth I shall die making odious the 
engine that has crushed my boy.” 

He went down stairs alone, but for an instant 
after reaching the street he could not see the men 
who spoke to him in passing. He was dizzy and 
faint. He had consciousness enough to know 
what was the matter, and how to escape. Turning 
his blanched face to the wall, he rested his hand 
against the building, and seemed to be studying, 
reflecting, meditating some puzzling question. 
But he knew he could not long remain so. Others 
passed, and either spoke or hesitated curiously. 
He thought again, “But I’ll die game,” and with 
that same sensation of climbing to a scaffold, he 
roused himself, and faced the future. 

Alice had driven to town to meet him, and he 
walked up to Ellet’s house where he knew she 
would wait for him. The girls saw him coming 
and met him at the gate, urging him to go in 
and rest. But he declined, though not roughly. 
He must hurry home, for to-morrow the Repub¬ 
licans held a big meeting in town, which he must 
attend; and in the evening he must address his 
friends at the court-house square. He kissed 
Esther with a tenderness that surprised her, used 
as she was to the expression of paternal affection. 
As he lifted his face from hers, the old man’s 
hand rested on her shoulder a moment, then 


AFTER THAT—THE DELUGE. 


183 


passed gently upward until it was laid lovingly 
about her head. She raised her eyes again to his, 
and then flushed hotly with what she read there. 

That was all. He walked away, helped Alice 
in the buggy, and drove home. 


CHAPTER XXL 


IN CIDER-MAKING TIME. 

Early next morning' Ellet came to the farm. 
He wore his best clothes, and had something of 
his olden air of tidiness and good keeping. He 
left the team at the hitching post, adjusted the 
harness a little, passing around the horses, and so 
came to the gate. Right there he was met by 
his father. He had not been at the homestead 
since that Sunday when he drove away with the 
indignant sense of superiority. In what abase¬ 
ment, with what shamed gratitude he now re¬ 
turned. He lifted the latch and began to thank 
the patriarch for the great service of yesterday. 

Ellet, said the old man, interrupting his 
somewhat stammering speech, “this farm isn’t 
big enough for you and me too. You better stay 
away till I get through with it. It rests with you 
whether you take it then. But while I am here 
you can’t come in.” 

“Why, father,” he began. This blow was so 
unexpected, yet so richly merited, that this youncr 
man felt the acme of his troubles had indeed been 


184 


IN CIDER-MAKING TIME. 


185 


reached; that the keenest possible retribution had 
now been visited upon him. Yet he could not 
turn away so. He knew his degradation, but the 
sense of a home, a haven, here was so strong 
that it seemed his father could not mean so much 
of sternness; and he said again—“Why, father! ” 

“ Young man, you struck your mother. When 
you can wipe that out, come home.” 

And the culprit turned away without one word 
of justification. He went to the team again, un¬ 
tied the horses blindly, climbed in the buggy, and 
drove away. 

The distant forests have changed from deep 
green to crimson and brown. The hedgeways 
are swaying slightly, and dropping leaves with 
every motion. The oak trees by the roadside 
have painted their foliage a rich wine color, and 
the hickory that stands on the line fence row 
sends down shelled nuts as he passes. Hazel 
bushes hold up great handfuls of brown treasures 
in wide-open husks, and tempt him to desert the 
shadow of life for a day in the sun. Squirrels are 
bolder. Frosts have warned them of cheerless 
days when the improvident must suffer, and they 
scamper along the brown top rails of fences, with 
pouches full of provisions. Weeds have granted 
a truce, and ceased growing, and stand with 
drooped head, as if regretting the work they gave 


186 


AN INDIANA MAN. 


the husbandman. Corn is maturing. Its tassels 
have lost their lustre, and waft withered blossoms 
to the soft, warm ground. The blades have 
caught the blighting frost, and bend their broad, 
velvety surfaces in sheer regret. The husk is 
gray and dry. It breaks from the swelling ear, 
and reveals.sharp rows of grain, swiftly hardening 
in the air and sun. Through the long aisles of 
the field vagrant breezes stray, and the tall, slen¬ 
der maize bows with a hum of homage, and a 
rustle of respectful applause. 

Grass on the roadside is dun in color. It has 
finished its work in the passing year, and has 
strengthened its hold in the earth, forgetful of 
appearances above ground. 

The very road is an autumn highway. The 
track is level and hard and smooth; the dust is 
heavy and does not rise. The air is as clear as 
an ocean cavern, and sounds from the woods drift 
across the brown fields, mellowed but audible; and 
over all swings the glorious haze of Indian sum¬ 
mer. Far away banks of blue smoke hide the 
outlines of the hills, and earth is one mirage of 
heaven. 

When Ellet reached town that night, the bur¬ 
den of his punishment heavy upon him, he was 
conscious of but one thing—a strong revulsion 
from the influences that had debased him. It did 


IN CIDER-MAKING TIME. 


187 


not amount to rage against any one, and was the 
more likely to last that it was rather subdued in 
color. But he had no desires, felt no tendencies 
of taste or habit to turn in and follow any of the 
paths that had led him from rectitude and manli¬ 
ness. He went home and put up the team, then 
sat on the porch and read till tea was ready. He 
was not effusive in his kindness to Esther, and 
was rather more alert than in the old days. No 
reference to the recent past was made by either of 
them, but she could see that between to-day and 
yesterday a wall was builded that would not be 
thrown down. 


CHAPTER XXII. 


THEY MET IN AN UPPER ROOM. 

Major Poole made an accurate forecast of the 
result of the election. In the legislature there 
was a majority of ten who had been elected on 
the platform demanding a prohibitory law. 

For the first time it seemed certain the measure 
would pass. No one appeared to question that. 
Papers and politicians all over the State conceded 
victory to the temperance men, and trimmers 
were busy getting ready for a change of heart. 
The new forces were held well in hand by Dean, 
of Fairview. He was admittedly the ablest and 
shrewdest man in the new army. His comrades 
held aloof, and when the caucus nominees strug¬ 
gled for a mastery, he named the speaker. When 
the managers of the old party came to him, Dean 
was firm. He could afford to be. 

“You fellows choso Hollowell,” he said, “ and 
we will help you elect him speaker. If you don’t, 
we will vote for a straight Prohibitionist, and the 
Democrats will elect the presiding officer. Hollo- 
well is as good a Republican as there is in your 
188 


THEY MET IN AN UPPER ROOM. 


189 


party, and he is satisfactory to us. We care 
nothing for the office, but we want the law. If 
you want to run the House, let us have our way 
about this matter. If you don’t, you wont run it 
—that’s all.” 

There was no use arguing with him. He could 
keep that little herd of new party men together, 
and keep them voting as principle dictated, till the 
Democrats filled every office in the legislature. 
That was a consummation devoutly to be dreaded, 
and they knew that if he remained firm they must 
surrender something. 

Dean must be fixed. 

They went to him next day with a proposition. 
He and one man from his little party should meet 
four men from the old party, and they would map 
out a programme. Quarreling would do no good, 
and might do a deal of harm—to the old 
party. 

“Aside from prohibition, our aims are the 
same,” said Tabor. “ You fellows naturally be¬ 
long to our crowd, and we naturally believe in 
your doctrine. But the time is not ripe for it yet. 
Still, if you insist on it, and the people seem to 
demand it, we will have to adjust matters. Now, 
what we want is to know just what you want. I 
guess things can be arranged so you can be grati¬ 
fied, and we can control the House.” 


190 


AN INDIANA MAN. 


“ Give us the law, and you can have the offices ” 
said Dean, sententiously. “ That’s Wesley Grant’s 
doctrine.” 

Dean and his confrere went to the place appoint¬ 
ed He was old enough to have known better- 
and, indeed, he had a premonition that the stern 
sense of the farmer chief would have opposed the 
step. But he trusted his skill and his knowledge 
of men to bring him out in no way loser. 

, in an u PP er room of a great hotel. 

When Dean and his companion entered they 
found a rather jolly party. A State officer and 
a well-known lobbyist were present. They 
had been courting the cup which cheers and oft 
inebriates. With them was an ex-State official from 
an adjoining commonwealth, and an ex-colonel of 
national reputation. The latter, whom Dean took 
to be visitors, were introduced with hearty, boist¬ 
erous formality of State capital life, and then all 
resumed their chairs. The Colonel was telling a 
story, and the State officer urged him to go back 
and begin again, for the benefit of Dean and his 
friend. When it was done all hands laughed very 
heartily, and the dignitary from a sister State was 
reminded of an incident somewhat like it. While 
he was talking a waiter came in with more bottles 
arid^glasses, and the lobbyist began pouring out 


THEY MET IN AN UPPER ROOM. 191 

“Mr. Dean, do you drink?” he asked, very 
respectfully. 

“No, sir,” said the prohibition leader; but he 
felt rather uncomfortable. 

“ I hope you take no offense at our touching it 
lightly.” 

“ We can stand it if you can,” said the man who 
had come here to dictate. Then the story was 
resumed. The marks of conviviality were removed, 
and for a time the most decorous air pervaded the 
room. But not one of the gentlemen left, even 
when the subject which brought Dean and his 
friend was broached. It seemed a thing they 
could all talk about. Dean had a very definite 
idea of what he wanted, and could not be 
induced to recede from the position originally 
taken. 

The large argument of what patriotism de¬ 
manded was used. The ultimate effect this stand 
would have on the party was shown him. The 
lesser importance of immediate prohibition was 
pointed out. But he stood firm. It was now or 
never with him. 

“ Take the offices and give us the law. If you 
don’t fix that up we will beat every man your 
caucus names to-morrow. We can do it. We 
have been chosen and pledged to do it, and it is 
right we should.” 


192 


AN INDIANA MAN. 


There was no answering that argument. So 
they rested awhile, and talked of other affairs. 

“This isn’t a matter just affecting Indiana,” 
said the visiting dignitary, returning later to the 
charge. “Its influence reaches to other States. 
If you adopt this amendment it will split your old 
party wide open. More than that, it will draw 
after it a like action in other States. Your success 
in Indiana means a like success in at least five other 
States here in the middle West. And that means 
the end of the Republican party; for, although 
all Prohibitionists are Republicans, all Republicans 
are not Prohibitionists. Thousands of them will 
go over to the enemy. You can read a warning 
in Glick, of Kansas. What happened then and 
there will happen again and will happen every¬ 
where—in every State that nurses this heresy—till 
men will learn to take what they can get, and 
wait for prohibition till the country is ready for 
it. Surely you don’t want to see every northern 
State lost to the Republicans.” 

“ No, I don’t. But take your State, for instance. 
It is not corrupt as is Indiana. Why, here the 
saloon has come to be what the church once was 
in politics. It is not only supreme authority—it 
is all the authority there is. Things have come 
to such a pass that every measure must be approved 
by the rum power before it can be adopted by the 


THEY MET IN AN UPPER ROOM. 193 

people. What that power wants the people have 
to give; what it don’t want, no one is strong 
enough to give—unless we are to-day. It convicts, 
acquits, dignifies, abases, enforces, annuls, enacts 
anew—and wields in all respects the imperial 
power. No other State is as saturated with it as 
is Indiana.” 

“ There’s where you are wrong,” said the visitor. 
“ You give yourself that bad name, and without 
reason. Ohio, Illinois, any of them, are worse. 
If Justice is asleep.in Indiana, in the rest of them 
she is dead. If Indiana is in slavery, they are in 
chains. If Indiana is fevered in the fumes of cor¬ 
ruption, they are festering and rotten with politi¬ 
cal leprosy. I know, for I’ve been there. You 
are wrong. You are wrong.” 

Then the Colonel began the attack. He painted 
with the colors of patriotism—that meant party- 
ism. He showed how first of all the men who had 
fought and bled were for the old party, and 
against any person or any movement that harmed 
it. He pointed out how it had punished certain 
men and delayed certain measures simply because 
they were forced upon it before it was ready; and 
how it had never failed to honor the men and 
adopt the measures that wisely consulted party 
interests. He deprecated treason everywhere; 
and the effect of this prohibition movement, how- 


194 


AN INDIANA MAN. 


ever honestly endorsed, worked treason constantly. 

After him came Tabor. 

“Dean, you and I were both elected to this 
legislature, and sworn to do our duty as we could 
see it. I am in the same boat with you. I want 
to do what is right by my constituents as much 
as you do by yours. If a majority in Fairview 
can direct and bind you, a majority in Vigo can 
direct and bind me. We must together do the 
best we can for the people of both counties.” 

The State officer had engaged Dean’s friend in 
conversation, and took him into an adjoining room 
to prove by statistics that a certain popular epi¬ 
gram was a popular error. 

“Now, Dean,” continued Tabor, “your people 
want a prohibitory law before anything else. My 
people want it too, but they demand some other 
things first. There are thirteen of you, all bound 
to secure that one thing, whether anything else is 
done here this winter. There are 137 of us, all 
insisting on some other things with equal earnest¬ 
ness.” 

The Colonel and the visiting statesman went 
over to the window to prosecute a warm argu¬ 
ment as to the terms of a certain surrender. Dean 
and Tabor talked on. In half an hour the State 
officer and Dean’s friend came back from the 
adjoining room, and the latter was jubilant because 


THEY MET IN AN UPPER ROOM. 


195 


he had convinced his companion the epigram was 
not an error. He was quite in good humor with 
himself, and was inclined to be magnanimous. 

The conversation became general. bTo one 
asked what Dean and Tabor had concluded to do. 
A wider range of topics engaged them all. A 
waiter came up with more bottles and glasses, and 
again the bibulous brethren drank. This time 
they did not apologize for the offensive act. It 
was so common here that it was not considered in 
ill taste at any time. 

Dean and his friend went back to their hotel. 

“ Well, how do we stand?” inquired the lobbyist. 

‘‘Dean’s all right,” responded Tabor. “He does 
not come very high, either.” 

“ His friend is rather an inexpensive luxury, too,” 
said the State officer. 

“Legislators are getting cheaper every year,” 
remarked the Colonel. 

“ To sum up, then,” said the lobbyist, lifting the 
straightened fingers of his left hand and touching 
them each in turn with the index finger of his 
right, “there’s Fletcher will vote against the reso¬ 
lution whenever we want him to, if his little boy 
is made a page.” And he tallied one. “Peyton 
will do whatever we want, and has signed a receipt 
for the purchase money.” And he tallied again. 

“ Winterman will move to strike out the enacting 


196 


AN INDIANA MAN. 


clause, but his friend, the warden, must be white¬ 
washed.” Three fingers were now bent over, 
and the fourth was carried down with a sort of 
impetuous, triumphant charge, as the man con¬ 
cluded—“and Dean is ours all winter.” 

Hollowed headed the list of caucus nominees, 
and all over the State the news was heralded that 
the Prohibitionists had dictated it. They com¬ 
manded the situation. Already a committee was 
busy drafting the bill for a prohibitory law, which 
would now certainly be passed by the House. 
The Senate would not dare defeat it, and the 
Governor would sign it. A feeling of devout 
thankfulness went up all over the State. The 
faithful were never before so near success. Oppo¬ 
sition to the movement was not loudly expressed. 
If one might judge by what was read and heard, 
one would surely conclude that the only active 
sentiment abroad in Indiana was in favor of the 
amendment. 

This ominous silence preceded a storm. The 
Dean bill had been presented to the House, and 
referred to a committee. It was published all 
over the State, but the papers that presented it 
had nothing to say either in praise or censure. It 
came up in committee, and was favorably reported 
with scarcely the change of a line. Excepting 
that Winterman had been grievously offended by 


THEY MET IN AN UPPER ROOM . 197 

Dean, there had been no sort of a hitch in its 
progress. The gentleman from Porter seemed 
unaccountably enraged by something in a speech 
the chairman had delivered, and no apologies 
would pacify him. 

“I’ll m ake you sorry for that, Mr. Dean,” he 
said, walking swiftly up and down the committee 
room, and panting in rage. 

The bill was placed on its passage with no more 
opposition than would have been met by a motion 
to order additional stationery. A day was set for 
the debate to begin—and then came the clamor! 


CHAPTER XXIII. 

TOO BASE FOR INSULT. 


From corner to corner the whole commonwealth 
blazed with the fury of denunciation. Language 
was taxed. Vocabularies were exhausted. Vitup¬ 
eration was unleashed. From every county-seat 
came indignant demands to defeat that meas- 
ure. 

“ The P eo P le do not want it. Public opinion is 
not ready for it. It will turn peaceful communi¬ 
ties into hoards of wranglers. It cannot be 
enforced, and a dead-letter law breeds contempt 
for all law.” ^ 

That was one view. Here was another: 

“ We have no right to adopt it. We have no 
right to confiscate the millions of invested capital. 
We have no right to control private conduct.” 

And here was yet another: 

“Vote it down. Drive its defenders from 
cover. Whip them out of their thin cloaking of 
sanctity. Teach them that the people-their 
masters—repudiate them. Chase the fanatics 
from the halls of the House, and cram this insane 


196 


TOO BASE FOB INSULT. 


199 


enactment down the throats of the men who 
made it.” 

Not only the State, but the nation, was wild 
with the uproar. From every capital, from every 
city came the same loud cannonade. Personal 
abuse, ridicule, slander—anything that could sink 
the bill and crush its friends, was quickly employed. 
And there was no time for the reformers to rally. 
So long delayed, so sudden and so fierce had been 
the assault, that they stood stricken and helpless 
in the face of an opposition that seemed universal. 

Wesley Grant hurried to the capital. His 
friends must gather nearer the battlefield and lend 
encouragement to frightened legislators. The 
sentiment which was disclaimed must assert itself, 
or all would be lost. The old man had rested so 
securely in the belief that the bill would become 
a law that this furious assault startled him. He 
summoned a score of men to meet him at the 
State House, and then tried to see and talk with 
those on whom he had depended. He knew by 
Dean’s compact that all he asked at organization 
had been pledged him. Tabor had committed a 
certain majority to the passage of this measure. In 
exchange every office had been surrendered, and 
half the business of the session was already accom¬ 
plished. Would they dare attempt such treachery ? 
Was there no spark of honor about them? 


200 


AN INDIANA MAN. 


He sat in the gallery and watched the proceed¬ 
ings below him. He marked this one and that 
one, who had been sent up here for just one duty 
before all others. He saw young men who owed 
im their election, and he wondered if they had 
been corrupted. He sent twice for Dean, but that' 
gentleman was busy, and could not see him before 
evening. 

Disappointed and chagrined, he went out and 
walked the busy streets. He was almost dis- 
tracted, and this unusual movement and life 
relieved him. He must brace himself for the 
worst, whatever it might be, and resolve never to 
be disheartened. He went to his room, and this 
telegram was handed him: 


nn^ S !i h ?! SSOne ' Pe °P' e here think she is with you I have 
notified detectives to be on the lookout for her John Huhori 
m Fort Wayne, and will be in Indianapolis to-morrow nfght X 

Ellet Grant. 

Old Wesley knew what it all meant when he 
had read the three first words, but the blow was 
no less crushing. He did not rave or fall, or so 
out for help. He did not second Ellet’s efforts to 
nd her. That seemed like publishing his shame. 
He only laid his weary head down on the table 
and wept like a bereaved child. 

How close to his heart this girl had lain! How 
he had fondled her—just yesterday, it seemed— 


TOO BASE FOR INSULT. 


201 


when as a baby she cooed to him and rolled her 
shut hands in his face! How he had rocked her 
to sleep night after night in those days when his 
hands were firm on the plow; and how she had 
loved her strong father better than any one else! 
How he had watched her growing from slim 
girlhood to woman’s sweet estate, mingling the 
light of beauty with the shade of duty, till heaven 
or earth seemed equally her home; and how she 
had gone from him at last— 

Poor, tired, gray old man; how much his heart 
had borne! Yet it was in his nature that not even 
this calamity could turn him from the master pur¬ 
pose. No use going home; she was not there. 
No use rushing abroad in search; she would not 
be found that way. And, after all, this was only 
one more nail to drive in the coffin of that power 
which made evil all that was good. Surely God 
would curse it that it might die. 

He stood up at last, but his head would droop 
forward. He started to walk about the room, 
but the springing step with which he began would 
falter and grow slow. 

Dean did not come up as he had promised, and 
Wesley went out to find him. The bill had been 
hurried forward, and to-morrow they would vote. 
He must know more about the present status. 
From what he had learned in town, no changes 


202 


AN INDIANA MAN. 


were counted on yet. As he neared that final 
moment the old man’s nerves were strung with a 
closer tension. He was not composed, strong, 
confident; he was uncertain, suspicious, just trem¬ 
bling on the verge of anger, and just catching him¬ 
self forming a curse for this one and that one who 
had deceived him. 

He could not find Dean. Gentlemen of whom 
he inquired had seen the member from Fairview 
“only a moment ago,” but none of them could see 
him just now. 

He went to the train, and met Otway from 
Allen, and Singleton from Posey. They had 
followed him through the campaign, fighting with 
all manfulness for the legislature, and had rejoiced 
with him when they saw victory perch on his 
banner. They had asked no favors and made no 
threats, but they had done all their work so well 
that they looked for the law as they would look 
for day after sunrise. But they were followers 
still, not equals; and when they marked how 
crushed this sturdy leader was, their spirits fell, 
and the light of triumph faded into the cloud of 
fear. They found a few of the members who had 
sworn allegiance, but could learn nothing authorita¬ 
tive from them. Some expressed the sentiment that 
they were mistaken in thinking the State wanted 
prohibition—either in this way, or at this time. 


TOO BASE FOR INSULT. 


203 


“If you had been here all winter,” they said to 
Otway, “you would see things different. The 
voice of the people ought to rule, and we think 
the voice of the people is loud against any such 
movement. Still, we don’t know of any change 
in the situation. Dean and Peyton are managing 
this thing.” 

The delegation wandered around here where 
they had expected to be received with honor, and 
grew weary in the empty quest of busy statesmen. 

Wesley told none of them his greater trouble. 
He must bear that alone. It was lighter so. 

Next day the galleries were crowded. Many 
women had been admitted. The debate would be 
very interesting. The floor was better occupied 
than usual. Around the door was a larger crowd 
of those who had a word to say with men within. 
Somehow, the sense of great events pressed upon 
actors and auditors alike. The chamber was 
quieter. Was it stern resolve, or cowering 
shame ? 

The Dean bill had passed its third reading, and 
was placed upon its passage. 

“Mr. Speaker,” said Representative Winter- 
man, with an angry glance at the Chairman of 
Committee. He had shouted the same words 
yesterday, but so wild was the confusion of busi¬ 
ness that he hardly heard himself. Now they 


204 


AN INDIANA MAN. 


rang across the silent spaces, and a thousand eyes 
glanced from him to the chair. 

“The gentleman from Porter,” said the presid¬ 
ing officer. 

“I move as an amendment that the enacting 
clause of this bill be stricken out.” 

The words fell like a knell on the ears of those 
men who had earned success. There was a 
startled exclamation, a shifting of position, a rustle 
of amazement from the galleries. But no one on 
the floor looked up there. All sat with that stolid 
silence which meant the fulfillment of a programme 
—which meant hire and service. 

Were the friends of the bill waiting, as Warren’s 
men waited that morning in June, till the whites 
of the enemies eyes were seen? Were they wait¬ 
ing, crouching, trembling for the spring which 
should stifle corruption and vindicate a people’s 
expressed demand? 

There was little debate. The flow of eloquence 
which was to have gratified a listening nation, 
faltered in half a dozen spiritless speeches. The 
champions were silent. Dean, Peyton, Fletcher 
were delivering the goods they had sold. 

The audacity of the assault on the very enact¬ 
ing clause showed the strength of the opposition. 
Wesley Grant buried his face in his hands and 
groaned. He had hoped to sit here and see this 


TOO BASE FOB INSULT. 


205 


monster throttled, and he had raised, provisioned 
and equipped the army that could and should have 
done it. He summed up somewhat of the counts 
he had against it, for the speeches were not worth 
the hearing. 

“ Then I had home; now I have none. Then I 
had Ellet, and now he is lost. Then I had Esther, 
and now she is gone. Then we were rich and 
honored and respectable; now I am the father of 
a disgraced, defaulting sheriff, the father of a way¬ 
ward and wandering daughter, and the husband 
of a woman who has been struck by her own 
child. May God arrest this day the flood which 
is sweeping other homes into the gulf where mine 
lies ruined! ” 

Why, how bound up in this day’s action his 
whole life had become! As one after another the 
barks of his loves slipped from him, he had com¬ 
forted himself in the hope of this event. And as 
it had marked an era for him, so had it been 
regarded by ten thousand other men—and by a 
host of women, who are never counted. All that 
the men had planned and hoped and worked and 
voted for; all that the women had wept and prayed 
for, was to have received completion here and now. 
Young men had pictured it as one of the heroic 
things that might live in story. Old men had 
based on a decisive vote here the certain prom- 


206 


AN INDIANA MAN. 


ise of an escape from thralldom. To them this 
picture of a House so passive, of a champion so 
inert, of great truths so weakly spoken, of opposi¬ 
tion so boldly arrayed—all this to them was indeed 
a mystery, and could have but one solution. 

Wesley could not wait till that dull speaker had 
sated himself with killing time. He opened his 
eyes and saw Dean sauntering carelessly in from 
the cloak room. He must say one final word to 
him, even though it be hopeless. He hurried 
down the carpeted stairs, and sent for the gentle- 
man from Fairview. 

“How are you, Grant?” said Dean, rather too 
nervously to be cordial. “I can’t give you a 
minute just now. Ready to vote, you know. Oh 
we 11 carry it by four or five. Glad you came to 
see our triumph—your triumph, too, if it is any 
man’s in Indiana.” 

Somebody just inside the swinging baize doors 
said Dean,” in a questioning, warning tone, end¬ 
ing with a rising inflection. He turned quickly, 

owed deeply to the countryman, and hurried to 
his seat. 

Wesley climbed the stairs again and hastened 
to his place, for there was a commotion below. 
Vote! Vote!” members were shouting. 

“Mr. Speaker! Mr. Speaker!” certain other 
members were shouting. Pages were running 


TOO BASE FOR INSULT. 


207 


about like mad. There was an uncommon and 
an energetic crowd in the lobby. Hollowed was 
pounding the desk fiercely without in any way 
silencing the uproar. 

Presently the clerk was calling the roll, though 
no one had heard a ruling. 

Old Wesley Grant leaned forward, grasping 
the rail before him, and trying to follow each 
“Aye” and “No,” and catch the voter with his 
eye to bless or curse him. Could they—could 
they strike out the enacting clause? At last they 
had ended, and he stood waiting with strained 
senses for the final announcement. He quivered 
with rage at the stupendous insolence, and held 
his breath in the silence that followed as the vote 
was proclaimed. 

“Ayes, 77; noes, 73. The motion prevails.” 

There was an instant of confusion below him. 
Members had left their seats and were hurrying 
about. They seemed just set at liberty, and the 
failure or success of legislation was of no account. 

The hum and clatter which announced a ques¬ 
tion settled was at its height when a tall, gray 
man in the gallery towered up before them, close 
to the rail, and dominating every chair in the House. 

“You are a set of cowards,” he shouted. “You 
perjured, corrupt, ungrateful dogs! You rascals, 
villains, traitors! You are a set of cowards!” 


208 


AN INDIANA MAN. 


Of course he was silenced. An officer caught 
him roughly by the shoulder, and forced him to 
his seat. The noise below had abated. Mem¬ 
bers stood looking up at that tense figure, stood 
listening to the passionate reproach, .the fierce 
denunciation, and stilled their little clamor in the 
outburst of a breaking heart. 

Presently the most shameless of them rallied. 
They talked together in a group for a moment, 
then fell apart and stood glaring about them. 

“Mr. Speaker,” cried Tabor, of Vigo, “the 
man should be punished. He has affronted the 
whole State of Indiana. He has insulted this 
House. I de—” 

“ No, I haven’t,” retorted Wesley Grant. “ This 
House is past insult.” And he went without a 
struggle beside the officer to the very door of the 
capitol. 


CHAPTER XXIV. 


THE WRECK. 

Otway and Singleton joined him immediately. 

“What shall we do?” they inquired; but he 
turned from them and walked alone down the 
busiest street. They followed him, afraid for his 
reason. The strain had been too much. He had 
too certainly counted on success. Failure meant 
so much to him. He did not seem aware of their 
presence, and so they let him wander on, only 
keeping him well in sight, and guarding him from 
all harm. 

For hours the old man paced steadily forward, 
keeping at first in busy streets, and looking straight 
before him. Finally his footsteps turned toward 
the quieter portion of the town. Twilight was 
rapidly sinking into darkness. Far down the 
street a man was coming toward them lighting 
the lamps. Half a block away he thrust his torch 
into a globe and waked the bright flame just as 
two young women passed him and stopped at the 
entrance of a house. One of them was very 
handsomely dressed. The other followed her in. 


209 


210 


AN INDIANA MAN 


Wesley Grant had been watching the lamp¬ 
lighter until this point, but he dropped him now, 
and fixed his eyes on the cold front of that brown 
stone building. At the end of the square he 
crossed over, and came back on the other side, 
his friends following him silently. He had passed 
the house without a motion further than that still 
gaze against the solid door. But right in the 
shadow of the lamp he stopped. There was a 
sound of quarreling within. Women’s voices 
were lifted in contention. Feet were beating a 
tattoo on carpeted stairs. A chain was rattled. 
The door was opened, and the well-dressed girl’s 
companion sprang from the threshold, and stood 
without hat or cloak on the pavement. There 
were voices within in angry tumult—women, all 
talking together. The frightened girl turned 
toward the three men, and then old Wesley held 
out his hands to her, and said, “ Come on, Esther; 
we’ll go home.” 

It was void of passion or reproach, and was 
pitched in the kindly key of father love. In the 
tone and in the gesture there was the resurrection 
of a thousand days when she had brought her 
troubles to him, and lost them in the boundless 
depths of his great heart. But now she recoiled 
from him, shrieking in fear, and fled away in the 
darkness and the cold. 


THE WRECK. 


211 


He turned and resumed his walk, not once 
noticing the men who followed him, and came at 
last to the hotel. He seemed to have recovered 
at least a portion of his courage, for he went about 
the work of quitting town with all the orderliness 
of a practiced traveler, and took the train for 
home. But he would not talk with them. He 
was not interested in what they said. When they 
mentioned the great disgrace of the day he only 
turned from them, and seemed occupied with the 
movements of truckmen and those who handled 
baggage. When they parted from him he shook 
their hands without meeting their eyes, made no 
response to their kindly wishes, and left them 
before they had done speaking. 

From the window of the sheriff’s office Ellet 
Grant saw his father come up town from the 
train next morning, and sent a deputy to get the 
team and drive him out to the farm. He followed 
from a distance, and saw his father riding away, 
then returned to his work, and did not wonder 
that the broad slouch hat covered a face white 
with the ashes of defeat and disgrace. 

As he wrote there, a boy brought him a tele¬ 
gram. He looked at the clock and put on his 
coat. 

“I am going to Indianapolis,” he said to the 
chief deputy, “ I may be* back to-morrow.” 


212 


AN INDIANA MAN. 


A policeman had stopped the young woman as 
she had fled from that chance meeting with her 
father, and had taken her to the station till some¬ 
thing could be learned about her, and till she could 
be provided with wraps against the chill of wintry 
weather. There they knew she was the person 
they had been directed to find, and they telegraphed 
to Ellet, while giving her all the care and comfort 
the shabby place afforded. They thought she 
was willing to wait until her brother came, but 
shortly after dark next evening she slipped from 
the room in which they had been lodging her, and 
was gone again. 

As he stepped from the train in the great depot 
an hour after, Ellet saw her face in the window of 
a car just leaving the station. He had barely 
time to clamber up the steps as the crowded cara¬ 
van swept through the doorway, and out into the 
silent, snow-heaped city. 

This was Ellet’s hardest journey, and he thought 
how bitter the cross must be to her who sat there 
just before him, uncomforted, and crushing the 
thorns of woman’s crucifixion deep in her tortured 
soul. He longed to go to her and take all the 
burden of her own wrong. He longed to tell her 
how deeper than ever she could go he had trodden 
the way of error, and he resolved he would find 
some way to knit again the cord that once had 


THE WRECK . 


213 


bound them, and rest her secure in the conscious¬ 
ness of a brother’s love. 

He had let an hour pass, and was turning from 
the flying silhouettes outside to the drowsing pas¬ 
sengers within, half rising to go to her now, when 
a jolt and bounding motion of the car threw him 
from his seat, and called attention to the scream¬ 
ing whistle of the engine. Then came the roar 
which told of the covered bridge, and then the 
louder sound of rending timbers as they fell away 
and pitched the train with its trusting load into 
the rocky gorge beneath. 

Some were sleeping, and roused from dreams 
to be choked with smoke and scalded with steam 
and frozen with icy water. Some were awake, 
and these were even less fortunate, for they had 
seen the danger sooner, and were struggling to 
escape. Ellet was dimly conscious of this as he 
gathered himself together at the side of the car, 
and looked for that bolt upright figure which he 
had been watching all the long ride from the city. 
There was fire between them, and he could hear 
her familiar voice, troubled with the labor of 
escaping from burdens which pinned her down 
.and hurt her cruelly. He was half way to her, 
creeping over the writhing mass that struggled 
in the dark and shrieked its terror, when he found 
that only one hand was doing duty. The other 


214 AN INDIANA MAN. 

was crushed, and he could feel the warm blood 
that filled his sleeve, while the rest of his body was 
drenched with the cold water that poured in from 
the windows, now deep in the river. 

Esther’s complaints grew louder as he neared 
her. She was losing that rare self control which 
had always armed her. Her presence of mind 
was going, and she had left intelligent effort to 
struggle wildly for release. Just as the clamor 
around her had drowned the last of reason, Esther 
heard her brother call her, and was silent in an 
instant. He struggled on, close to the wall, past 
those who were escaping or praying for even 
death’s deliverance, nearer to the flame in which 
he feared her voice was hushed forever, till he 
reached the place where she had been before the 
accident. 

Groping there thus, in the chaos that was now 
lighted by the burning car, he found her, and 
pressed his face close down to hers, and in the 
wreck that ended life for some, these lives were 
reconciled. 

She showed him where the timber, which had 
pierced the car, was pressed against her, crushing 
her shoulders and denying release, and he forced 
his body closer, wedging in between it and the 
wall, and crowding it away till she could escape. 
Then the sickening consciousness came that he 


THE WRECK. 


215 


himself was not able to escape. With her release 
the timber pressed heavier upon him, and he could 
only wait until the fire, that ate so rapidly, should 
weaken his prison, and give him freedom. But 
long before that came he had sunk helpless and 
senseless upon the disordered chairs, and it was 
Esther’s strong arms that found him and lifted him 
to safety. 


CHAPTER XXV. 


quite through the valley. 


One of the deputies mounted a horse and rode 
to the Pretty Lake farm bearing the news of the 
wreck, and carrying also this message: 


We were in the train that went down with the bridge. Ellet 
saved my life and is with me now. He is badly hurt. 


Esther. 

By 10 o’clock Wesley was in town. Papers 
were brimming with accounts of the catastrophe. 
His son’s name was among the fatally injured, and 
his daughter was mentioned as one whose miracu¬ 
lous escape was notable, even in an event so thick 
with marvels. He went to the telegraph office 
and sent this message to the sheriff: 


You have atoned that blow. Ellet. Come home. 

Father. 

Then he paced the narrow platform, or tried to 
wait in Major Poole’s office till the train could 
bring these two who seemed coming back to him 
from the uttermost parts of the eartb. What did 
it all matter, any way ? They were his, and he 
was theirs. Life was so short. He could not 
afford to cherish even the memories of the months 


216 


217 


QUITE THROUGH THE VALLEY. 

that had passed. The harvest of his manhood 
was wasted in woe, but he seemed anxious to for¬ 
get all but the years when Fate was kinder to 
him. He looked at his watch, and said to the 
lawyer that it wanted but half an hour of train 
time. Then he went out again, and started to the 
depot; but when nearly there he stumbled, stag¬ 
gered weakly for a moment, then, clutching his 
breast with both hands, fell senseless upon the 
pavement. 

It was noticed he lay directly in front of Sau- 
tern’s place of business. 

Friends gathered in a moment and lifted him, 
trying to call back the tides of life that had already 
ebbed far beyond the power of man to summon 
them again. He made no sign, said no word, and 
passed in an instant from the hymn of chastened 
forgiveness to the everlasting chorus of the saints. 


The other day I passed through Fairview. I 
was looking through the window at the pleasant 
streets and white houses of the town when Uncle 
Dave Edwards came in and took a seat near me. 
He remembered me after a time, and as the train 
rolled away, he told me about those I had known 
in the town. 

“Yes, Poole got too big for Fairview, and went 
up to Richmond two or three years ago. I aint 



218 


AN INDIANA MAN . 


heard from him, but I guess he is gittin’ along. 
He’s a mighty smart man sence he let whisky 
alone. Folks did say him and Alice was going to 
git married, but I don’t know. He’s a heap older 
than what she is. No, Ellet wouldn’t have a sec¬ 
ond term of sheriff. They wanted him to, but he 
wouldn’t. I used to be on his bond, and I got 
afraid of him onct, but he straightened everything 
up like a man. Esther? Oh, she lives on the 
farm and keeps house for Ellet. They aint got as 
much land as they used to have, but they are 
gittin’ along. That four year in town was a hard 
thing for them, one way and another. John 
Haberly’s out for Secretary of State this year, and 
I wouldn’t wonder if he got the nomination. He’s 
follered up saloons and politics too, and made ’em 
pay. That’s a purty hard thing to do. Either 
you’ve got to break yourself, or break a lot of 
other people. Oh, yes, they’re all gittin’ along; 
but it aint the same as what it was. You can’t 
never make anything in this world like it was. 
Old Mrs. Grant? Wesley’s wife? Why, she’s 
dead. She died right after Wesley did. That 
seemed to be the hardest part of Ellet’s trouble; 
though why, I never knowed. Well, I must get 
out here. I want to look at some timber. Good¬ 
bye.” 


THE END. 

































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